J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 

$** .-iw^i -« 

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l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



EARNEST WORDS 



ON 



True Success in Life, 



ADDRESSED TO 



YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN. 



BY 

RAY PALMER. 




V \ 

A. S. BARNES & CO. 
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 

1873- 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

A. S . BARNES & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 

MY DEAR AND HONORED FRIEND, 

ALFRED SMITH BARNES, Esq., 

OF 

NEW YORK CITY, 

WHOSE NAME HAS BEEN LONG AND WIDELY ASSOCIATED 

WITH BOOKS DESIGNED TO PROMOTE THE BEST CULTURE OF 

THE YOUNG, AS WELL AS WITH THOSE RELATING TO 

OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF HEALTHFUL LITERATURE, 

2Ti)fs TToIume 

IS INSCRIBED, 

AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE SINCERE RESPECT 

AND WARM AFFECTION OF 

RAY PALMER. 



PREFACE, 

A MONG the most pleasant recollections of the 
^-^ author's labors as a pastor, through a long 
course of years, are those relative to his intercourse 
with the young people of his charge. It was his 
special joy to know these personally, and to gather 
them so closely around him that he might enter into 
their peculiar experiences and life. He found in 
them a ready response to his friendly feeling and an 
openness of heart to his influence and counsels, 
which led him to believe that his endeavors to be 
useful to them were not wholly in vain. 

It was his habit to address young men and wo- 
men, from time to time, as a distinct class. In these 
addresses he sought to help them to understand 
themselves and their true position, and to awaken 
in them right purposes and aspirations. He re- 
ceived then and has often had repeated to him 
since, such thanks for his efforts of this kind as have 
satisfied him that they were not without abiding 
fruit. 



6 Preface, 

He is led to hope, therefore, that a small volume 
embodying a few of these addresses may prove an 
acceptable offering to some of the great number 
of young persons who are now just advancing to 
meet the responsibilities and perils that belong to ri- 
pened years. While many of these are doubtless 
more ready to read for mere amusement than with 
any sober purpose, it cannot be but that there are 
also many who are often moved to serious thought- 
fulness in relation to what lies before them. Such 
will gladly avail themselves of any practical sugges- 
tions that promise to help them in so shaping their 
course that they may avoid the rocks on which 
vast numbers are continually wrecked. To these 
the writer offers, with his warm sympathy and fra- 
ternal greeting, the following Earnest Words, in 
the hope of stimulating in them a generous enthu- 
siasm and assisting them to avoid the shame and 
misery of failure, and to achieve an honorable suc- 
cess on the great arena of life. 

RAY PALMER. 

New York, May i, 1873. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. — CHARACTERISTICS OF YOUTH, ... 7 

II. — CAUSES OF FAILURE IN LIFE, ... 29 

III. SELF-CULTURE, 5 I 

IV. FALSE VIEWS OF LIFE, . . . -77 

V. THE TWO CONTESTS OF LIFE, . . 95 

VI. THE LAW OF HABIT, . . . . 115 

VII. THE DANGER OF INDULGENCE IN LITTLE 

SINS, 135 

VIII. THE CHOICE OF A LIFE-WORK, . . . l6l 

IX. — THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED, . . 177 

X. MORAL COURAGE, 1 95 

XI. — MORAL COURAGE, CONTINUED, . . 217 

XII. — TRUE GREATNESS ACCORDING TO CHRIST, 235 

XIII. CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AN AID TO SUCCESS. 2;; 

XIV. — THE DESIRE OF TRUE GLORY A CHRISTIAN 

AFFECTION, 275 



CHARACTERISTICS OF YOUTH. 



"Let no man despise thy youth." — I Tim. IV. 12. 



TRUE SUCCESS IN LIFE. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF YOUTH. 

T PROPOSE to address a few kind yet earnest 
■*■ words directly to those who are passing through 
the not very sharply-defined period which lies 
between childhood and maturity. Just then the 
question whether the future of life shall bring suc- 
cess or failure, honor or shame, must needs fre- 
quently suggest itself to every considerate young 
person. It is a question which often brings 
with it feelings of deep solicitude and a painful 
sense of responsibility. To stand at the point 
where the various paths of life diverge, under the 
necessity of choosing decisively which shall be per- 
manently pursued, is no light thing. It is my wish 
to show those who are thoughtfully desirous to 
choose wisely, that while they may so decide and 
act as to incur deserved contempt, they may so de- 



io True Success in Life. 

cide and act as to compel the respect of others and 
to make sure that their lives shall be crowned with 
true success. 

But why address myself to young men and 
women as a particular class ? Why not leave these, 
as well as others, to appropriate whatever may be 
suited to their wants out of the more general in- 
structions which may be addressed to all classes 
alike? For several reasons, any one of which 
might be sufficient. Mere generalities are likely to 
accomplish little. It is only when truth is specific 
and well-directed that it can be expected to reach 
and move the heart. Those in youth, moreover, 
are relatively a numerous class. Very rapidly chil- 
dren are pressing up from the ranks of childhood, 
and with glowing faces and beating hearts, are be- 
ginning to enter on the practical realities of life. 
That they are a most important class it hardly need 
be said. In a little time they are to take the places 
of their fathers and mothers, and for good or ill, 
to have the most precious interests intrusted to 
their care. They are not only the hope of their 
families and friends, but also of the church and the 
world. 

Let me add, too, that in those who are just now 
on the threshold of active life, I feel a deep personal 



Characteristics of Youtli. I I 

interest. My hearty sympathies are with them, and 
I enter into their pleasures and their pains, their as- 
pirations, anxieties and hopes. If by any words of 
mine I can encourage, stimulate, direct, or strength- 
en them, nothing could afford me greater satisfaction. 
That so many of them have been led to consecrate 
themselves, while the dew of early years is yet upon 
them, to the service of God — who delights in the 
offering of young hearts — is a just occasion of fer- 
vent thanksgiving on their behalf. Altogether I can- 
not think that any apology is needed for devoting to 
them some special attention for a time. 

First of all let me refer to some of the chief pe- 
culiarities by which the period of youth is marked ; 
or rather, by which the young, who have passed 
beyond childhood, are commonly distinguished as 
a class. 

It is well understood that youth is emphatically 
the period of rapid development — the time, in other 
words, in which the faculties of the soul most rapid- 
ly reveal themselves. The infant, at first uncon- 
scious, is almost passive. It is little more than a 
mere receiver of impressions through the senses. 
When it has become conscious of its own personal 
existence and of the action of other persons and 
things upon it. it advances slowly in the process of 



12 True Success in Life. 

testing its own powers in one way and another, and 
must feel its way at every step. In these experi- 
ments the awaking faculties find the needed exer- 
cise and stimulus, and so are brought gradually into 
play. 

Childhood is of course less passive than infancy ; 
but even through this period, impressions still pre- 
dominate. The child receives from the things about 
it, rather than acts itself upon these things. Yet 
the advance of the child becomes more and more 
noticeable from year to year, as if each stage in the 
process of unfolding rendered the next stage easier. 
It does so in fact. By the time the years of youth 
are reached, impressions no longer make up the 
chief material of life. Activity, the incessant try- 
ing of the newdy-found faculties, now constitute the 
larger part. So it comes to pass that by the pro- 
gress of education and by contact with the excite- 
ments of opening years, all the powers of body and 
of mind are rapidly unfolded and ready for use, ac- 
cording to their nature. New energies not sel- 
dom reveal themselves in such quick succession 
that it seems as if the soul had been suddenly 
kindled into ecstasy by some mighty inspiration or 
impulse acting on it. 

This rapid development of youth is one of the 



Characteristics of Youth. 13 

things that make it so specially interesting. It is a 
most pleasurable thing to watch day by day the 
manifestation of new capabilities — of the divine 
gifts with which God has endowed the soul — just as 
we watch the unfolding of rare flowers, or the 
growth of noble trees. Every parent understands 
this well. We all understand it to some extent. 
The consciousness, too, of this rapid putting forth 
of faculties is to the young themselves a joy. It 
is with something akin to exultation — is it not ? — 
that you who are in youth feel within you a sense 
of growing strength, of fast-coming fitness for the 
great life-battle that lies immediately before you. 
You notice the fact. You find in it a natural satis- 
faction. You may be too much elated by it — intox- 
icated with conceit — for this is an incidental peril 
of early years ; or it may, as certainly it should, 
move you to thoughtfulness and gravity. 

While the faculties are developed rapidly in 
youth, they also at once demand to be employed. 
So it naturally results that youth is eminently char- 
acterized by restlessness. Nothing is more natu- 
ral than that, conscious of having become capable 
of entering into the activities of life, one should 
feel strongly impelled to do it. As God meant us 
to be active, he so made us that the healthful use ' 



x 4 True Success iu Life. 

of our powers should be a pleasure. This is true 
of the powers of body and mind alike. In the ani- 
mal creation we constantly see that the young de- 
light in motion. The lambs in the pasture, just for 
the sake of the pleasure found in using the power 
they feel, will leap by the hour together across a 
ditch or off a rocky cliff, or chase each other in 
endless gambols. So with the young of all animals. 
Even those of ferocious beasts, when not in pursuit 
of prey, disport themselves together with all imag- 
inable antics. We see the same in little children. 
What with the love of motion and the desire of 
gratifying curiosity by making new experiments, 
they wish to be still only when thoroughly weary 
with exertion. If a child has a new boat he must 
sail it — while his mother's cautions and his clean 
clothes are all unthought of. His new knife must 
be tried, though it be to the great peril of furni- 
ture, or other useful articles, not excepting his own 
fingers. In all this is revealed the natural impulse 
to make use of new-found powers. 

It is in accordance with this general law that 
young men and women, who, as we have said, feel 
within themselves a consciousness of many of the 
higher faculties all at once, as it were, in vigor and 
prepared for work, should also feel the impulses of 



Characteristics of Youth. 15 

a perpetual restlessness — an energy demanding to 
be expended in one way or another. This restless- 
ness is sometimes quite excessive. It then be- 
comes a peril, we may even say a vice ; for it 
leads to instability of character, and fickleness of 
purpose, and impatience of any steady application 
— to a habit of frivolously flying from one thing to 
another ; of being " everything by turns and noth- 
ing long." Such a habit is fatal to excellence in 
anything, and makes a complete life-failure alto- 
gether probable. Few sights are sadder than that 
of young persons with no serious purpose or stead- 
iness of application ; fickle, capricious, intent only 
on doing what suits the humor of the hour. 

But on the other hand, the restlessness of the 
young, when not allowed to become a controlling 
impulse, is a salutary force. It is the foundation 
of enterprise, the nurse of energy, the spur of 
courage. It awakens laudable ambitions, kindles 
enthusiasm, stimulates to high endeavors, and leads 
the thoughts away from the present in search of 
what is most worthy within the limits of the possi- 
ble. As it is not by sitting still, but by mighty 
strivings, that the real prizes of life are to be won, 
it is well that the young are not easily satisfied — - 
that a finger seems to be pointing them ever on- 



1 6 True Success in Life. 

ward — that a voice within their souls seems always 
to be saying, " not this, not this ; higher, higher, 
are the destinies that await you." It is no doubt 
because of this feeling of unrest that "young men 
for action, old men for counsel," has passed into a 
proverb ; and that a very large proportion of the 
great deeds of history have been achieved by those 
who had hardly passed from youth into early man- 
hood. It is certainly a marked characteristic of the 
period of youth, for evil or for good. 

Yet another notable characteristic of youth is 
its propensity to sanguine anticipation. The 
whole condition of the youthful mind is favor- 
able to this. We have spoken of the rapid 
awakening of the faculties at this stage of life. 
The sensibilities are quick. Thought is active and 
ranges wide, The imagination is lively, and de- 
lights, out of the colors that it finds, to paint on 
the canvas of the future beautiful pictures without 
end. Experience has as yet taught but little as to 
the realities of life, and there is nothing to hinder 
the brightest dreams about what the years that lie 
before may probably reveal. Desire is peculiarly 
intense ; for most forms of good are as yet nearly 
or quite untried ; and the result of the whole is a 
strong disposition in most young persons to live 



Characteristics of Youth, ly 

chiefly in the future, and with confidence to expect 
that that future will be fair. 

It might be supposed that even those who are 
just entering the arena of life would see and hear 
enough to save them from yielding themselves to 
romantic expectations. But it is constantly seen 
that only repeated bitter experiences can chase 
away the illusions to which the young heart so easi- 
ly surrenders itself, and lead to sober and just an- 
ticipations. A young man is going into business 
as a merchant. He looks about him and sees 
some who, in devotion to mercantile pursuits, have 
accumulated wealth, and now live in elegant retire- 
ment. Ah ! that is what he proposes to himself, 
and already in fancy sees himself enjoying. He 
has made no note of the fact that these are the five, 
or the ten at most, out of every hundred, who were 
fortunate ; while the remaining ninety, or ninety-five, 
were unsuccessful. He will enter one of the learn- 
ed professions, or he will venture into the lists of 
authorship, or will try the career of the orator or 
statesman. His eye fixes only on the very small 
number who have won for themselves distinction in 
any of these spheres of effort. He does not see 
the vast multitude of those who have failed to 

reach distinction, and many of whom have strug- 
2 



1 8 Irue Success hi Life, 

gled with disappointments and hardships all their 
days. This building airy castles, this rearing a 
structure of anticipation on a foundation too narrow 
to support it, this calculation of successes with 
many of the most important elements of the pro- 
cess of reaching them disregarded, is a pleasing 
kind of self-deception, a wakeful dreaming, a living 
in the spirit of practical romance. It exposes to the 
most painful disappointments. It is a widely differ- 
ent thing from the calm hopefulness of an enlight- 
ened Christian faith that, confiding in God's wise 
providence, trusts cheerfully that the future will bring 
it nothing which will not really be conducive to its 
welfare. The sanguine expectation of the glowing 
heart of youth rests often on no solid basis. It is 
the exhilaration of mere desire. The anticipations 
of faith rest on the rock of divine faithfulness and 
truth. The one springs from the buoyancy of 
youthful feeling ; the other is a spiritual gift. 

It is likewise generally admitted that youth is 
peculiarly the period of partial and hasty judgments. 
There are two causes from which this naturally 
results. That liveliness of the sensibilities and 
that energetic condition of the fresh and expanding 
powers to which we have referred, dispose the 
minds of those who are in youth to act with pecu- 



Characteristics of Youth, 19 

liar quickness. They find it difficult to stay for 
careful thought and calm consideration ; but incline 
to hurry as fast as possible to conclusions. Then 
again, as they have necessarily but a limited knowl- 
edge and experience of things, they are apt to draw 
conclusions from a very partial acquaintance with 
the facts that ought to be considered. Instead of 
going all around a subject and looking carefully at 
it on all sides, they incline to rest in the view which 
first presents itself, assuming that they understand 
it thoroughly. Still further the judgments of the 
young are particularly liable to be influenced by 
their feeling, and their wishes ; because with them 
the impulses of inclination and desire are so sud- 
den and so strong. All these causes tend to pro- 
duce decisions made so hastily, or on such insuffi- 
cient grounds, that they are very likely afterwards 
to prove erroneous. To this source may be traced 
some of the proverbial faults of youth — for instance, 
its self-sufficiency and pertinacity of opinion. A 
young person of twenty in most cases hardly admits 
to himself the possibility that he can be mistaken 
in regard to anything about which he has adopted 
an opinion. He knows — as he thinks — and there is 
nothing further to be said. The same person at 
forty or fifty, though he has been learning all the 



20 Trite Success in Life. 

while, has so often found himself in error that he 
is very likely to be far more modest in his bear- 
ing, far more disposed to hear with deference and 
to weigh with candor the opinions of other persons. 
This hastiness of judgment in the young is of 
course to be treated kindly; for in part, at least, it 
is inevitable. Within certain limits it may minister 
to energy of character. It is only unamiable and 
worthy of rebuke when it takes the form of an of- 
fensive forwardness and arrogance. It is a charac- 
teristic of the young of which they themselves 
ought, on many accounts, to be well aw r are. 

It is the more important that every young per- 
son should be sensible of his own liability to precip- 
itate and ill-considered judgments, because youth is 
the time when the most important practical decis- 
ions must be made — the decisions by which char- 
acter and happiness are most to be determined. 
At your period of life, you who are now in youth, 
every practical judgment you form is likely to have 
a determining influence on your whole future condi- 
tion and destiny. As you stand at the point from 
which the many possible paths of future life diverge, 
among which you are to choose ; as you are now 
laying the foundations on wliich, to your joy or 
sorrow, you are to build in coming years, it will be 



Characteristics of Youth, 21 

especially disastrous if, through heedless haste, you 
decide to accept any false principle, or opinion, or 
system of principles and opinions, instead of what 
is true ; or determine to take a wrong step or enter 
a wrong course, to the neglect of what is right. A 
rash, precipitate decision now, may make itself felt 
in its pernicious consequences not only to the end 
of life, but on to the eternal ages of your being. It 
is certainly worth the while to remember that you 
are especially liable to fall into errors of this sort. 
It is quite natural at your period of life to do so. 

I will notice but one more distinguishing char- 
acteristic of the period of youth. It is the period 
in which pre-eminently the higher instincts of the 
soul reveal themselves, in undefined but powerfully 
earnest longings. Except in some rare cases, child- 
hood is too immature, and too superficial in its feel- 
ings, to know very much of this. But when the 
days of childish simplicity have gone by ; when the 
soul in the consciousness of lately-developed facul- 
ties begins to comprehend its position, as placed in 
the midst of God's great universe, allied to myriads 
of other beings, and with vast possibilities before 
it ; when, in a word, it begins to be conscious of the 
solemnity, the grandeur, the profound mystery of 
existence, then there begin to arise within it, in 



22 True Success in Life. 

its more quiet moods, intense desires — desires it 
knows not yet for what — that seem to come up 
from its profoundest depths, and to go out in all di- 
rections for something rich enough to fill them. 
There is a line passage in Wordsworth's Excursion 
in which he represents a shell removed from its 
ocean bed as seeming to be ever murmuring, as 
if in harmony with the music of the deep : 

I have seen 
A curious child who dwelt upon a tract 
Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, 
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon 
Brightened with joy ; for murmurings from within 
Were heard, sonorous cadences ! whereby 
To his belief, the monitor expressed 
Mysterious union with its native sea. 

In this poetic fancy have we not a fitting sym- 
bol of that outgoing of the human soul in which it 
seems to cry out for something greater than itself, 
to which it is akin and without which it cannot rest 
content? This voice that pleads within, we, who 
have the Bible in our hands and who know that we 
are indeed the offspring of God, do recognize as the 
voice of the soul separated by the body from the 
invisible and spiritual, crying out for contact and 
sympathy with its unseen Father, and asking for 



Characteristics of Youth, 23 

satisfactions worthy of its high origin and its im- 
mortal destiny. In youth more than at any other 
period of life, ordinarily, this pleading of the heart is 
heard. It becomes often the source of noble pur- 
poses, an incitement to good and honorable deeds. 
It may urge to the pursuit of all that is true and 
beautiful and good, if guided by the light of divine 
revelation, and obedient to the spirit of God. But 
it may be drowned in the tide of sensual pleasure, 
or stifled with the cares and the engrossments of 
mere earthliness ; only, when this occurs, it then be- 
comes a deep inward sense of disappointment, a bit- 
terness of spirit, a sad despondency mingling with 
all the thoughts and feelings day by day. 

You who are in youth, know, I am sure, — doubt- 
less in somewhat different degrees — this longing of 
the heart. Often and painfully you feel it. Socie- 
ty does not bring relief. Neither pleasure, nor 
business, nor prospects of worldly success, nor the 
enjoyments which you are beginning to taste in 
knowledge, or in art, or in anything within your 
reach, can prevent you from being profoundly con- 
scious that there is some great and essential good 
— some primary element of happiness — something 
above and beyond the things of sense — to which 
your higher nature stands related, and for which it 



24 True Success in Life. 

very often yearns. I am not now going to speak 
of the means by which this longing, so natural to 
young hearts, may find its proper satisfaction. I 
only wish to fix attention on it, as characteristic in 
an eminent degree of youth. 

In thus noticing a few characteristics of the 
class I now especially address, I have selected 
those which seem most prominent and which are 
most closely related to individual life and welfare. 
Enough, perhaps, has been said to bring distinctly 
to your attention the peculiar nature and value 
of this period of life through which you are pass- 
ing. You have left behind you the days of child- 
hood, so rich in golden lights to those whose 
lot is happy. That was the season of receptivity 
—of sweet and diversified impressions. Now here 
you stand as if brought face to face with the great 
realities of life. With rapidly expanding pow- 
ers ; with the inward restlessness that prompts to 
action ; with sanguine anticipations in relation to 
the future ; with the liability to hasty judgments 
that belongs to intense feeling combined with inex- 
perience ; and with deep yearnings in your hearts 
that testify that you have been created for some- 
thing great and good — you are coming on to try 
the issues on which the whole value of your exist- 



Characteristics of YoutJi. 2$ 

ence must depend. Here you are severally to 
choose your line of action ; to decide on what prin- 
ciples you will proceed and under what influences 
you will place yourselves ; to lay your course and 
trim your sails for that momentous voyage which it 
is yours to make over the mighty ocean of the fu- 
ture, so rife with storms, and covered with thick 
darkness to your present view. Your position is 
surely one of the deepest interest. 

What then would I wish in respect to you — you 
are perhaps ready to inquire. I do not wish to de- 
press and sadden you. I would not check the 
hopefulness, nor diminish the vital energy which 
you now naturally feel. If you live to meet the full 
responsibilities of life, you will need all the cheer- 
fulness and force you have to carry you through 
successfully. Keep all the buoyancy and strength 
you can. 

But what I would do, if possible, is this. I 
would wake in each youthful heart a quickened 
sense of its present and great responsibilities. 
With those characteristics of youth which have 
been noticed, great perils and great duties are ob- 
viously connected. How many young men and 
women seem unconscious of this entirely ! How 
many, without reflection, yield themselves up to the 



26 True Success in Life. 

pleasures of the moment, obey the impulses of in- 
clination, practice no resolute self-denial, form no 
high purposes or plans, get no just impression of 
what they have at stake in life, and trifle and fritter 
away advantages more precious than words can 
tell ! In the case of those who do live wisely, there 
is commonly some particular time when the soul is 
awakened — perhaps as in a moment — to a sense of 
what it is, and what it owes to itself and to. the 
magnitude of the work which it has upon its hands. 
Some trifling incident, a paragraph or sentence 
from some author, a word casually dropped ... by 
some associate or friend, has proved, in many an 
instance, as fire to tinder, kindling deep in the 
'heart an ardor destined never to subside. I well 
remember how, in one young heart, a passionate 
desire for a knowledge of the classics .was kindled 
by hearing the opening lines of Virgil's y£neid re- 
cited well by an instructor ; and how poetic enthu- 
siasm was awakened into intensity, by the reading 
of the " Memoirs and Select Remains of Henry 
Kirke White ; " and a thirst for wide literary cul- 
ture, by going through with Mr. Roscoe's ele- 
gant " Life of Lorenzo de Medici." Oh, that some 
such electric thrill might be communicated to the 
soul of every young man and woman now ad- 



Characteristics of Youth. 27 

dressed, who is not already thoroughly awake and 
earnestly intent on being and doing the very ut- 
most that is possible to him or her. Once aroused 
to feel what talents and opportunities are worth, 
how pitiful and base a thing it is to misimprove 
them, and how blessed and noble a thing it is to 
use them well, you cannot but press on in high en- 
deavor to make the utmost of yourself and of the 
one life it is given you to live on earth. Are you 
already so aroused ? Then you are firmly resolved 
already, if God shall spare you, to acquit yourself 
honorably in whatever sphere you may be placed. 
If you have hitherto merely drifted with the cur- 
rent ; if you have not begun to understand the 
meaning and responsibilities of your existence, I 
pray you now to ask deliberately and answer to 
yourself the question — how and for what you ought 
to live ? May the loving Father who has endowed 
you with rich gifts, inspire you also with right pur- 
poses and set your hearts aglow with a divine enthu- 
siasm that shall urge you onward to fulfil them. 

Remember there is no time to lose. Spring 
with its opening buds and fragrant blossoms and 
singing birds and genial seed-time quickly passes. 
Soon rapidly succeed each other the sultry sum- 
mer heats, the ripeness and decay of autumn, and 



28 True Success in Life, 

winter's dreary frost. So chase each other life's 
rapidly changing seasons. Use well, young man or 
woman, your present vernal hours, that none may 
have just occasion to despise your youth. 



CAUSES OF FAILURE IN LIFE. 



" Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one re- 
ceiveth the prize ? So run that ye may obtain." — I Cor. ix : 24. 



II. 

CAUSES OF FAILURE IN LIFE. 

TN the races which were among the most intense- 
-■- ly exciting of the performances at the Isthmian 
Games, there were a great many competitors, while 
one only could obtain the prize. The certainty 
that one only could suceeed, of course presented 
the highest inducement to each do his very utmost 
that he might secure to himself the victory and re- 
ward. The issue of every trial was that one re- 
alized his ardent hope, and the rest suffered a 
bitter disappointment. 

Not precisely the same, but strikingly analogous, 
are the results which are constantly seen in the 
more momentous race of human life. There is no 
limiting of the prize to one ; but it occurs, as a 
matter of fact, that while all run, it is but a very 
small proportion of the whole that run prosperously. 
The many suffer the miseries of failure. The few 
only, win and enjoy the satisfactions of success. 
Everywhere along the waysides of life are scattered 



32 True Success in Life. 

the wrecks of perished hopes. Every day thou- 
sands depart from life worn out with the pangs and 
the chagrin of ever -recurring disappointments. 
Sad as this view of our human condition is, we can- 
not venture to deny its truth. 

Whence then the failures that darken so many 
lives ? Shall we attribute them to mere accident 
or fate ? Our Christian education forbids us to do 
that. We know that in the great system of things 
man's rational nature and consequent responsibility 
are recognized and provided for ; and that the law- 
obtains that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he 
also reap. The fortunes of mankind depend so 
much upon themselves, that it is entirely legitimate 
to inquire by what means each may make or may 
mar his own — may achieve success, or bring on 
himself the sufferings of failure. 

Before we can speak intelligently of the causes 
which produce so many melancholy failures in life, 
even among those who enjoy abundant means and 
opportunities, it is necessary to settle clearly in our 
minds what we mean when we pronounce life a 
failure. It is not so easy to do this as we may at 
first imagine. Failure is the opposite of success. 
What then is success in life — or when may a life be 
regarded as a successful one ? What would you 



Causes of Fat here in Life. 33 

say ? It is a question to which different persons, if 
required to reply at once, would be likely to give 
verv different answers. 

Some would doubtless consider success in life 
to consist in the realization of one's plans and wish- 
es. They would regard those persons as success- 
ful who attain their ends, without inquiring what 
those ends may be. Others might take success to 
consist in the acquisition of those things which 
mankind generally look upon as most to be desired 
in securing, for example, wealth, honor, intellectual 
or social eminence, and what is generally included in 
the term — prosperity. Yet others would take a pro- 
founder view. They would consider that life only 
as successful in which the true and highest ends of 
living were in a good degree attained. You may 
realize your plans and wishes, and these may all 
turn out to have been wrong. You may get all the 
wealth your heart desires, and all the eclat of shi- 
ning in society, and holding conspicuous places 
among men, and seem to have nothing to desire, 
and yet all these things may contribute little to 
your happiness and nothing to your true well being. 
Should that be called success ? Can anything de- 
serve to be called success, in relation to life as a 
whole, which does not include such a moulding of 



34 True Success in Life. 

one's character and such a discharge of one's high- 
est duties, as will insure one's permanent well-being? 
I suppose every thoughtful and candid person will 
say no. 

We may say then that a successful life is one in 
which the best and most useful things of which a 
person is capable are attempted and accomplished ; 
and of course that that life is a failure in which the 
best and most useful things of which the individual 
is capable are not undertaken, or, at least, are not 
achieved ; in which talents, opportunities, and years 
have been enjoyed to little or no advantage, in a 
just estimate of things. A failure, in this view of 
it, may be considered as a thing of degrees. It 
may be partial, or it may be entire. If a man ac- 
complishes nothing proportionate to what might 
fairly be expected of him, his life is, relatively, a 
failure. If one's life is useless or injurious to him- 
self and the world, his life is a failure absolutely. 

What then — we return now to the question — are 
some of the more noticeable causes of the life-fail- 
ures which abound on every side ? 

The first which I will mention is the living with- 
out any definite and serious purpose. If a man 
will send a ship to sea, he first of all deter- 
mines her destination. Then he arranges every- 



Causes of Failure in Life. 35 

thing with reference to this. He furnishes out- 
fit and provisions according to the foreseen re- 
quirements of that particular voyage. Then he 
places a master in command and a pilot at the 
helm, who will know how, through opposing currents 
and contending winds and storms, to make the des- 
tined port. He would certainly be set down for a 
fool who should dispatch his vessel amply furnished 
and with all sail set, without any settled destination, 
or any one in charge to direct her course. We 
might well imagine in such a case, the devouring 
elements lifting up their voice in derisive laughter 
and shouting " aha ! " while they waited for their 
prey. 

Shall a young person, then, furnished with all 
the high endowments of a rational and moral na- 
ture, commit himself and all the precious interests 
of his existence to mere contingencies ? Shall he 
place himself at the mercy of the time and chance 
that happen unto all, with no end distinctly set be- 
fore him, no thoughtful choice of means, no adopted 
plan of effort, no fixed and resolute will ? Egre- 
gious as this folly is. there are, unhappily many 
who commit it. Partly in many cases through the 
fault of parents, who neglected in early years to 
teach them the true object of existence, and partly 



3 



6 Trice Success in Life, 



through their own thoughtlessness, such seem to 
take for granted that they are of course to drift 
with the current of circumstances — to be and to 
do what the accidental influences with which they 
come in contact may determine. Is it any wonder 
that a young man or woman thus objectless and pas- 
sive at the most critical period of life should fail ut- 
terly to live to any good account ? Is it not the most 
natural thing conceivable that where everything is 
left to the impulse and the humor of the hour, appe- 
tite, inclination, the ruling passions, whatever they 
may be, should assert and hold ascendancy and de- 
termine all the conduct ? With no regulative force 
within, what should hinder one from becoming indo- 
lent, sensual, frivolous, pleasure-loving, reckless, 
incompetent, worthless ? 

Yes, young men and women, it is almost cer- 
tain failure to suffer yourselves to be like mere 
driftwood on the sea. One of the first conditions 
of success in life is a settled purpose which is to 
shape the whole. It is an advantage to decide, as 
early as possible, to what particular pursuit, profes- 
sion or attainment, your life is to be devoted. One 
who at an early period chooses the line of business, 
the course of study, the branch of science, the de- 
partment of art, the field of professional or literary 



Causes of Failure in Life. 37 

effort, which he will make his calling, will find this 
choice to exert a happy influence both in steadying 
and in stimulating his activity. To know what you 
are striving for, makes it all the easier to strive. 
But beyond this there is a higher and more general 
purpose than that involved in the choice of one's 
particular pursuit, which is essential to a successful 
life, and the lack of which ensures a failure. It is 
the broad purpose, fixed firmly in the soul, to make 
the very utmost of your capacity and your advan- 
tages. Such a decision becomes a powerful regu- 
lative force. It puts duty first, and subordinates 
to that inclination, caprice and taste. It stimulates 
to self-culture and self-mastery. It makes life a 
rational and earnest thing, and gives it unity and 
method. But let this high, deliberate, sober pur- 
pose be wanting in you, and to a certainty unworthy 
influences will rule your actions, and you will either 
make no serious exertions, or will fritter away your 
time and strength by bestowing them on compara- 
tive trifles. Is it anything surprising that those 
who aim at nothing accomplish nothing in their 
lives ? No better result could reasonably be ex- 
pected. It is absurd to imagine that the prizes of 
life are to be obtained by accident. 

A second cause of failure to live successfully, is 



38 True Success hi Life. 

the want of a just appreciation of the difficulty 
with which success is won. The young are apt 
to be sharp critics. They deal severely with the 
defects which they see in the characters or the 
performances of others. This, not from any malice, 
or a mere love of finding fault. The source of the 
foible — for it should be considered as a foible — is 
their inexperience. They have not yet had time to 
learn by actual trial how hard it is to extirpate con- 
stitutional, or at least deeply-rooted faults, to exhibit 
consistently distinguished virtues, or to do anything 
so well as to deserve the praise of excellence. 
Those who have come by experiment to understand 
the truth, while they are not the less discriminating 
in their perceptions, are inclined to be more lenient 
in their judgment. You feel a tender sympathy 
with one who at a faltering pace is struggling up- 
ward, when you remember the weary steps with 
which you yourself ascended the arduous steep. 

It is, unquestionably, a great thing to achieve a 
successful life ; however easy it may seem before- 
hand to the sanguine. While the world is yet un- 
tried and the fresh spirit sees everything future as 
if bathed in rosy light, there is a romantic pleasure, 
often, in thinking and talking of the difficulties to 
be surmounted. When we read in works of fiction, 



Causes of Failure in Life. 39 

or in real biography and history, of the self-denials, 
the discouragements, the conflicts, the perils, sor- 
rows and tears, through which some favorite char- 
acter pressed his way to illustrious virtue and good 
and useful deeds, we are so pleased with the impres- 
sion of the picture, that we fancy to ourselves how 
happy we should be to travel over the same ground. 
There are perhaps few intelligent young persons 
who are not conscious of having had such thoughts. 
But it is a widely different thing to encounter 
difficulties from what it is to read or dream of 
them. There is no romance about real trials. 
They are very prosaic and unpalatable things ; so 
different, commonly, when they come, from anything 
anticipated, that one seems not prepared for them 
at all. Hence it happens, in the case of many who 
set out in life with some good purposes and some 
degree of resolution, that when it comes to the ac- 
tual experience of the sacrifices, the self-denials, and 
the toils that are sure to be found in every path 
which leads to true success, there is a shrinking 
back, a lack of the energy and courage that should 
bear one through, and at last a failure through de- 
spondency. The apprentice cannot endure to go, 
step by step, through the tedious process of mastering 
his trade. The clerk gets out of patience with the 



40 • - , True Success hi Life. 

years of irksome- drudgery that must be preliminary 
to success in business. The student wearies of the 
long course of mental discipline which custom has 
exacted, and either abandons study altogether, or, 
relying on his genius, vainly attempts, with half an 
education, to compete with those who have been 
thorough in the work of preparation. A man goes 
into the pulpit, or to the bar or senate, and fancies 
that without hard study and solid acquisitions he 
shall be able to act effectively and permanently upon 
the minds of men. He figures for a little while, 
perhaps, with borrowed thoughts and flashy and 
pretentious words and airs which may captivate at 
first the superficial. But ere long his emptiness re- 
veals itself; and, as Miss Edgeworth quaintly says, 
" going up like a rocket, he soon comes down like a 
stick " — a hopeless failure. The wife and mother, 
worried with endless cares and petty vexations, as 
well as with graver trials — most of which she 
must endure in seclusion, without the encourage- 
ment of the world's sympathy and applause — loses 
her aspirations, her ambition, her elasticity and 
energy of mind; and gives over all the efforts at 
self-culture which were requisite to make her a re- 
fined and noble woman. So in innumerable in- 
stances. Unless the minds of the young be deeply 



Causes of Failure in Life. 41 

impressed at the outset with the greatness and the 
painfulness of the difficulties to be surmounted in 
living well ; unless they nerve themselves for the 
grapple of great contests, the danger of failure 
from disappointment and depression, or from mis- 
calculations as to what is needful to success, is very 
great indeed. You will do well — if you propose, as 
we trust you do, to live really successful lives — to 
count well the cost beforehand, and to gird your- 
selves up for the bearing of many crosses, and the 
tasking of all your energies to the utmost. To 
dream of accomplishing anything w r orthy of you 
without this, is almost certainlv to fail. It is no 
child's play to climb " the rugged path, the steep 
ascent, that virtue points to." It is only to be done 
by high endeavor. 

There is a third cause of failure which comes 
near to being the exact opposite to that just noticed. 
It is the error of those whose ideals are always be- 
yond their power of execution ; who form, that is, 
such high conceptions of what they ought to do, or at 
least would wish to do, that they have no heart to 
attempt anything in earnest ; or if they do, again 
and again give over with chagrin, because they can- 
not approximate to a realization of the vision that 
floats before their minds. 



42 True Success in Life. 

If the failures from this cause are less numerous 
than those from others, they are nevertheless espe- 
cially to be deplored ; for it is only minds of a high 
order that are liable to fail in this particular man- 
ner. It is the prerogative of such minds — minds 
that have the insight of genius, combined with 
power of intellect and reach of imagination — to 
conceive, whatever they attempt to do, of a degree 
of excellence which no human power can reach. 
The effect of this is apt to be a passionate desire to 
achieve something far beyond what is ordinarily 
reached, even by superior minds. When such a 
desire has gained full possession of any heart, the 
mere ordinary degrees of excellence in character 
and worthiness in deeds, are apt to seem of very 
little value and hardly deserving one's attention. 
From the high position from which such persons 
look at things, and the broad views which they are 
wont to take, it seems to them almost trifling to 
come down to the common level of human life and 
to do good and get good in an ordinary way, as the 
majority of people do. The conception of some- 
thing great, something admirable and perfect, per- 
petually haunts them ; but all their attempts to 
reach it are like attempts at flying to the sun. The 
result is that they become disgusted with their own 



Causes of Failure in Life. 43 

endeavors and utterly despair, or at best, the results 
they reach are fragmentary and greatly dispropor- 
tioned to their powers. They fail of living a good 
and useful life, because they are too ambitious of 
doing something more than this. 

There is indeed something noble in forming; his;h 
ideals which we may seek to realize. They may 
kindle our ardor and stimulate us to the best use 
of our powers. So far as they accomplish this, they 
are eminently useful. But why should one yield to 
the morbid feeling which leads to incessant looking 
to what is beyond his reach, instead of contenting 
himself to do what is plainly within his power ? 
The number has always been small, in every walk 
of life, of those who have attained the highest emi- 
nence. It is surely better to be an upright and 
honorable man of business, filling your place and 
meeting the demands of society upon you in an ave- 
rage position, than to accomplish nothing because 
you cannot absolutely rule the commercial world. 
It is better to contribute even a little to the knowl- 
edge of mankind than to bury your talents because 
you cannot be a Gallileo, or a Newton. It is better 
to serve your clients at the bar, or your country in 
the senate, to the best of your ability, than to live 
uselessly because you cannot rival a Cicero, a 



44 True Success in Life. 

Burke, or a Webster. It is better to preach the 
gospel in a plain way to the comfort of God's peo- 
ple and the saving of some souls, than to refrain, 
because you cannot be as profound as Paul, as per- 
suasive as John, as elegant as Bourdaloue or Mas- 
sillon, as glowing as Whitefield, and as acute as 
Jonathan Edwards. It is better to write lays that 
shall touch and warm the hearts of those about you, 
and words in prose that shall help to enlighten their 
understandings, than to withhold them because you 
cannot write another " Paradise Lost," or another 
" Spectator," or " Rambler." It is better to shine 
as the beloved and honored centre and joy of some 
quiet domestic circle, than to count this as nothing 
because you cannot enroll your names on the list of 
historically famous women. I need not go on with 
this sort of illustration. Nothing can be plainer 
than that when we suffer our ideals to indispose or 
unfit us for practical and even commonplace well- 
doing; when we fall into the illusion of thinking 
that it is not worth our while to try to do anything, 
in any particular line of effort, unless we can do the 
best thing in that line which we are able to conceive 
of as possible to be done, we render it nearly certain 
that our lives will prove to be almost, or altogether, 
failures. Remember, that the power of practical 



Causes of Failure in Life. 45 

execution, the power of doing, must be combined 
with the power of conceiving what may be done, if 
you would live successful lives. 

There is a fourth cause of failure which it yet 
remains to notice. It is the want of a practical 
recognition of the all-directing Providence of God, 
and a practical harmony with it. With all who ad- 
mit the existence of a Deity, a personal God of in- 
finite perfection, the admission theoretically of his 
universal Providence must be a matter of course. 
The one conception necessarily involves the other. 

But all experience shows that along with the 
ready acknowledgment of a divine Providence in 
terms, there may exist a practical atheism, or a 
state of mind falling but little short of this. That 
is to say, there may be no habitual thought of the 
Providence of God, either as indicating the course 
of life to be pursued, or as concerned with the par- 
ticular steps to be taken at each successive stage. 
We may— unfortunately too many do — adopt our 
plans of living and proceed in the details precisely 
as we should if the idea of a Providence had never 
entered our minds. 

But if there be a divine Providence — 

— " a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them as we will—'' 



46 True Success in Life. 

— no life can be a really successful one which is not 
wrought out in accordance with the divine ordering 
of things. Providence has a place and a use for 
everything. It does not set the palm-tree and the 
orange in arctic regions, nor clothe with furs the 
animals inhabiting the tropics. The sparrow and 
the lily is each fitted to its position and its end. 
Not less certainly must this be so with every human 
being. This, then, is one of the great questions 
which meet every young man and woman when 
youth throws open before them the many paths of 
life. To what particular life-work am I best adapt- 
ed, and to what does the course of Providence lead 
me ? Happy they who wisely consider this, and 
find it in their hearts to pursue, faithfully and stead- 
ily, the ends which their own fitness and the nat- 
ural order of events has placed before them. He 
who cheerfully consents to do the particular work, 
whether in itself pleasant or unpleasant, that Provi- 
dence assigns him, is like a ship that lays her course 
so as to have the advantage of favoring wind and 
tide. Working in harmony with that resistless will 
that determines all events, he cannot but succeed. 

But how many there are who seem to be always 
struggling to be something different from what 
Providence would make them, and to do something 



Causes of Failure in Life. 47 

different from the tasks which Providence imposes ! 
This class of persons are perpetually dissatis- 
fied, unstable, capricious, whimsical. If they have 
been brought up to business, they wish they had 
been brought up to study. If brought up to 
study, they wish they had been brought up to busi- 
ness. If necessity detains them at home, they are 
pining to go abroad ; if obliged to go abroad, they 
are longing to be at home. If they live in the 
city, they would greatly prefer the country ; if in 
the country, they are unhappy for the town. If in 
private life, they look wishfully to conspicuous 
places ; if filling prominent positions, they are ever 
picturing to themselves the pleasures of retirement. 
If living singly, they are anxious for married life ; 
if burdened with home cares, they sigh for single 
blessedness. Thev see nothing but the discomforts 
of their own condition and work, and nothing but 
the pleasures of the condition and work of others. 
Somehow or other — they cannot tell us why it is — 
they are always rowing against the stream. They 
seem to themselves the most unfortunate of mortals. 
Among the most unfortunate certainly they are ; 
but it is all because of their own great error. In- 
stead of wisely waiting on divine Providence and 
acquiescing in its allotments, they are in constant 



4 8 True Success in Life, 

collision with its mighty wheels. No wonder they 
are overborne and swept away. A life ordered in 
such a manner can be nothing but a failure. 

Believe it young man and woman ; your lives 
will certainly prove failures unless you set them in 
harmony with the will of God concerning you. 
Your wisdom lies in choosing for yourselves the 
same end which he chooses for you ; and in faith- 
fully keeping in the path by which his providence 
would lead you on to its attainment. The heart of 
a man deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his 
steps. You are not forbidden to have your own 
preferences and to use your own judgment, so far as 
decisions are fairly left to you. But see to it that 
you contentedly accept what God has plainly ap- 
pointed for you, and that you do not in anything at- 
tempt to resist and thwart his manifest designs. 
Accept the precise life-work which he providential- 
ly sets before you, and perform it courageously and 
with a right good will, if you would escape the mor- 
tification and the miseries of failure. In concurring 
with God's design, you will give the best scope to 
your own powers and will find everything go well. 
In working against his will, you will experience, 
soon or late, a complete defeat. 

I think it will be found that the general causes 



Causes of Failure in Life. 49 

of failure to succeed in life which have been noticed, 
cover pretty nearly the whole ground ; and that to 
one or the other of these, nearly or quite all of the 
more particular causes may fairly be referred. The 
want of a definite and controlling purpose ; the 
lack of a just conception of the difficulties to be 
surmounted in living well ; the distaste for the com- 
mon forms of well-doing which results from exag- 
gerated ideals of what is possible ; and finally, the 
neglect to work in harmony with the Providence and 
will of God. 

Let me then urge you whom I now specially ad- 
dress, to think deliberately on this w T hole subject, 
and to make a practical use of what has been now 
suggested. You will bear in mind what was said 
as to the nature of success and failure. To live 
successfully, is not the same thing as to escape re- 
verses, to have everything turn out according to 
one's wishes, and to live in outward prosperity as 
the result of one's endeavors, or good fortune. Nor 
is failure the same thing as experiencing misfortune 
and having many disappointments to endure. To 
gain the most of true good for ourselves and to do 
the most for others, which was possible to us — this 
is success, as we have shown; and to lose the best 
good for ourselves and others which right living 
4 



50 True Success iti Life. 

would have secured — this is failure. If you are 
earnestly intent on living to the highest ends, your 
plans of business, of study, of professional labor, of 
social influence and the like, will be all the more 
likely to succeed. You may reasonably count on a 
good measure of this sort of success. But you are 
to estimate the value of your life upon the whole, by 
a higher standard than anything like this affords. 
Has life done for your character what it should ? 
Has it made the most of your capacities ? Has it 
entered for you an honorable record of talents and 
opportunities improved, of good influence exerted 
and good works done, in the eternal book of God's 
remembrance ? These will be the questions by the 
true answer to which your success or failure in liv- 
ing must be at last determined. 

Young men and women — so run the race of life, 
that ye may obtain the prize of living well. On this 
let your hearts be set. Achieve this, and you at- 
tain true glory. Fail of this, and you lose all. A 
life - failure ! Who can picture the catastrophe? 
God grant that not one of you may ever come to 
understand it by experience ! 



SELF-C ULTURE. 



'• For unto every one that hath shall be given and he shall have 
abundance ; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even 
that which he hath." — Matt. xxv. 29. 



III. 

SELF-CULTURE. 

| "VERY reader of the New Testament is famil- 
4—* iar with the parable of the talents. All the 
faithful servants, in proportion to what they several- 
ly received, increased the amount entrusted to them. 
The unfaithful servant, on the contrary, gained noth- 
ing. The former, because of their improvement of 
what was committed to them, were advanced to the 
possession of higher gifts. The latter, because of 
his misimprovement, lost all he had originally re- 
ceived and then was condemned and punished. 

Precisely this is what is constantly occurring. 
Each human being is naturally endowed with cer- 
tain faculties ; with one or two, or five or ten talents, 
according to the pleasure of him who distributes his 
benefits as he will. Every one who diligently and 
faithfully cultivates his powers, finds them becoming 
ever more effective ; feels himself continually grow- 
ing richer in capacity to know, to do, and to enjoy. 
Those, on the contrary, who are neglectful and want- 



54 True Success in Life. 

ing to themselves, discover after a time that they are 
steadily deteriorating, becoming less and less capa- 
ble of doing any thing useful, honorable and good. 
Such is the law under which we hold our high en- 
dowments received from the divine hand. It is a 
law enforced by the course of Providence. 

In childhood, and early youth perhaps, parents 
or others have the care of our improvement. With- 
out much regard to our own choices, we are placed 
at school and the work of education is begun. But 
at length school days are over. Parents begin to 
dismiss us from their particular care and supervis- 
ion, because they think that the time has come when 
we can and should bear our own responsibilities and 
exercise our personal judgments. This is the posi- 
tion in which those in riper youth are placed. They 
have been set forward a little in the way of self-dis- 
cipline and self-improvement ; and it now devolves 
on them to decide whether they will steadily go on 
improving, developing themselves by earnest effort 
in all practicable ways, or whether, forming no pur- 
poses of growth and doing nothing to ensure it, they 
shall unconsciously lose what by the aid of others 
they had already gained, and so suffer at length the 
miseries and bring on themselves the guilt con- 
nected with wasted powers. 



Self-Culture. 55 

Have you considered, young men and women, 
that the question whether you will now deliberately 
make the work of self-culture, in its broadest import, a 
work to be faithfully pursued through life, or whether 
you will neglect to give any serious attention to the 
matter, is at this point of your progress demanding 
of you a decision ? If you are forgetting this, and 
taking no pains to make yourselves what God has 
put it in your power to become, be sure that you are 
making a wrong start on your career of life. But 
may it not be hoped that you are really desirous to 
prosecute intelligently the work of self-improve- 
ment ? Is it not true, at least with many of you, 
that you are wishing for a better understanding of 
the particular things which this important, yet at the 
same time, very difficult work involves? Let me 
direct your attention then to some of the chief things 
included in a true self-culture. 

First of all it most obviously includes a determined 
and persevering effort to carry forward the work of 
intellectual improvement. This work has been be- 
gun in the family by parents and has been carried 
forward at school up to a certain point ; the point at 
which the practical duties of life withdraw from the 
places devoted to education. A good beginning 
may be supposed to have been made of the process 



$6 True Success in Life, 

of intellectual development and discipline at the 
time of leaving the school-room or the college. 
Something has been accomplished in acquiring the 
elements of knowledge, in learning the methods of 
study, and in gaining power of application. But why 
should the process stop because the whole time can 
now no longer be devoted to study ? That it does, 
in the case of great numbers of young men and 
women who have at their command the best advan- 
tages, it hardly need be said. With the exception 
of those who enter the so-called learned professions, 
how very small is the number of those who, after 
leaving school, take any systematic care or pains to 
secure a progressive intellectual growth. How many 
appear to take it for granted that, however agreeable 
intellectual pursuits may have been found, or might 
still be found to be, they must now give place en- 
tirely to the duties of active life. It is a common 
thing, it is a sad thing, to see great numbers who 
have laid a good foundation for a course of life-long 
reading and study for the enlargement and enrich- 
ing of the mind, make no serious effort to hold on in 
such a course. What is the result commonly in the 
case of such ? It is just what the Divine teacher 
himself so forcibly expressed : " From him that hath 
not shall be taken away even that which he hath." 



Self- Cu I ta re. 5 7 

At forty or fifty, when they should be ripe in under- 
standing and broad in their intelligence, they really 
seem to have less vigor of mind and less useful 
knowledge than they had when school days ended. 
Life with them has degenerated into a mere me- 
chanical routine, a tread-mill, in which there is the 
toil of motion, but no progress. Is this necessary ? 
By no means, it is shameful — a very culpable waste 
of powers and opportunities. 

There are certainly difficulties, great difficulties, 
to be surmounted by those who would maintain 
their intellectual growth as they advance into the 
busy period of middle life. It is by no means an 
easy thing for an apprentice, or a clerk, or even one 
who is at the head of his own business, to find time 
for the improvement of his mind. When shall it 
be ? From the early morning far into the evening, 
every moment is wont to be given to the shop or 
store, or counting-room. It is nearly impossible for 
the young man to find opportunity for the recrea- 
tion which he needs ; and the redeeming of time for 
his own improvement is quite likely to seem an ab- 
solutely hopeless thing. This whole system is 
wrong. The eagerness for rapid gains has been suf- 
fered gradually to usurp the whole of life, devoting 
it all to business cares and toils. Almost nothing 



58 True Success in Life, 

is left for social, intellectual, or moral culture when 
once the yoke has been put on. Nor is the case 
much easier for the young woman than it is for the 
young man. If she is in favorable circumstances, 
the claims of society upon her — many of them very 
questionable claims — absorb or fritter away her 
time, leaving hardly enough for the discharge of the 
ordinary household duties. If she is obliged to labor 
in some way for a livelihood, the scantiness of her 
earnings compels her to toil for as many hours as 
possible. This, too, is wholly wrong. But such is 
the actual state of things. Such is the position in 
which the young of both sexes find themselves as 
regards time for the improvement of their minds. 
The difficulties are not few. 

But, after all, very much may be accom- 
plished by those who have the resolution to 
make determined effort. If a young man or woman 
feels a quenchless appetite for knowledge, there 
will commonly be some way found to get it, 
even under the greatest disadvantages. You have 
heard of those who have explored the way into the 
temple of wisdom by the light of pitch-pine knots, 
or have mastered the elements of learning from 
books placed open before them while at work ; you 
have seen, some of you at least, the blacksmith who 



Self -Culture. 59 

possessed himself of fifty languages while working 
daily at the anvil. It has been demonstrated by 
many examples that in this matter nothing is impos- 
sible -to a determined purpose ; and if, under the 

worst conditions, so much has been accomplished, 
1 

much more may be accomplished under those ordi- 
narily favorable. There are few or none of those 
whom I now address, who by early rising, by a care- 
ful use of moments, by the choice of the best books 
and the most intelligent companions for the short 
leisure it may be possible to secure, and by habits 
of quick observation and thought, may not to great 
advantage stimulate the growth of their intellectual 
powers and add steadily to their valuable knowledge. 
To do this, then, is an imperative duty, as well as an 
important element of progress. It is a vast loss, in 
every view of the matter, that so many young per- 
sons are willing to be intellectually weak and empty- 
minded ; incapable of commanding the respect that 
is spontaneously accorded to intelligence, and of 
exerting the influence that superiority of mind con- 
fers. The loss to society is great ; and to the per- 
sons themselves it is incalculable ; and then will 
come at last the account that must be rendered unto 
God for the neglect rightly to improve and use his 
precious gifts. Let every young man and woman 



6o True Success in Life. 

be earnestly resolved on a systematic and persever- 
ing intellectual cultivation, both as the basis and 
condition of a general self-culture, and as of inesti- 
mable value in itself. 

Next to the care of the intellect in the work of 
self-culture, comes that of the emotional nature, the 
feelings. The heart, by which we mean the dispo- 
sitions and affections, is not less susceptible of cul- 
ture than the understanding. It is a great and perni- 
cious mistake to suppose, as many appear to do, 
that the sensibilities cannot be educated : that the 
tone of feeling which is natural cannot be modified, 
but must be accepted as something determined by 
constitutional law. Yet nothing is more common 
than to hear those who exhibit some particular un- 
amiableness, or some wrong habit of feeling, excuse 
it with the remark that it is natural to them, as if 
this were a complete defence. It is no defence at 
all. No doubt there is naturally a wide difference 
in the temperament of men. Some are less and 
some more susceptible. The passions of some are 
quicker, and of some slower in their kindling. Some 
easily sympathize with others ; some have little 
geniality. Some with but slight effort maintain a 
cheerful frame ; some readily fall into a despond- 
ing and melancholy mood. But what then ? This 



Self-Culture. 6 1 

is only saying that it may cost one person more 
effort to be refined, to be gentle, to be tender, to be 
hopeful and courageous than it does another. There 
is nothing to show that those impulses which are nat- 
urally too weak may not be stimulated, nor that those 
which are naturally too strong may not be duly re- 
strained and subjected to control. On the contrary, 
there are abundant facts to show that natural dispo- 
sitions and tempers may be modified indefinitely by 
the care and pains of a self-disciplinary culture. The 
most irascible and impatient persons, have often so 
thoroughly mastered themselves as to have become 
models of equanimity and cool forbearance. The 
most fitful and capricious have attained to entire 
deliberateness of action and of manners. The most 
arrogant and overbearing have become distinguish- 
ed for meekness and gentleness of spirit. It is no 
more necessary to leave the habits of feeling to be 
determined solely by the predisposition of nature, 
than it is to leave the intellectual habits to be so 
determined. 

It plainly belongs then to that work of self-cul- 
ture which every young person should be intent on 
accomplishing, to educate the feelings ; to correct 
whatever is naturally irregular, excessive, or un- 
healthful, and to acquire such emotional habits as 



62 True Success in Life. 

belong to amiable and virtuous character, and are 
productive of the greatest possible degree of person- 
al happiness. This can be done by persevering ef- 
fort. There can be no high type of character with- 
out it. The tone of feeling which is habitual with 
you, will be to your life what the atmosphere is to 
the face of nature — it will invest it with the beauty 
and the charm of a golden light, or with the unlove- 
liness of a cold, repelling aspect. 

The rill is tuneless to his ear who feels 
No harmony within ; the south wind steals 
As silent as unseen among the leaves. 
Who has no inward beauty, none perceives, 
Though all around is beautiful ; nay more, 
In nature's calmest hour he hears the roar 

Of winds and flinging waves 

And his own spirit into tumult hurled, 
He makes a turmoil of a quiet world ! 

A person whose habit of feeling is healthful, 
well regulated, genial, attracts as by a sort of fasci- 
nation ; while one whose habit of feeling is morbid, 
or who is liable at any time to be carried away with 
any particular ill-humor, as certainly compels one 
to avoid him. No one desires to come in contact 
with a temper that is liable at any time to wound 
with its volcanic outbursts, or to depress with its 
infectious melancholy, or to agitate and trouble with 
its overwrought excitements and its dark suspicions 



Self- Culture. 63 

and strange fancies. One who exhibits such a tem- 
per deserves to be, and will be, shunned by most. 
It is worth your while, therefore, to avoid carefully 
the influences that tend to vitiate the fountains of 
your feeling and to spare no pains to make and 
keep them pure. Nothing can be more certainly 
fatal to your own happiness and to your power to 
contribute to the happiness of others, than a per- 
verted emotional nature, a want of that pure, fresh, 
healthfulness of feeling which belongs to a sound, 
well-regulated mind. This is a want for which noth- 
ing can atone. 

It is equally a part of the work of self-culture to 
train the will to the habit of prompt and vigorous 
decision. There are the same natural differences 
between different persons in regard to strength of 
will, as in regard to other faculties. There are 
those who seem constitutionally disposed to decide 
promptly and with firmness. Others with hesitation 
and difficulty come to a decision. Still others, and 
they are many, can hardly be said to decide at all ; 
since they are carried rather in this direction and that 
by the force of those about them, than by any energetic 
act of their own wills. Those who are naturally en- 
dowed with great strength of will are few. They 
have perhaps no occasion to cultivate this particular 



64 True Success in Life. 

characteristic ; it may even be needful for them to 
put restraint upon themselves ; but by far the great- 
er number must acquire it, if they have it. Whether, 
however, energy of will be natural or acquired, it is 
always an element in every strong character. The 
men and women who possess it, are those who con- 
trol the world. Out of this class have come all such 
as have won renown by extraordinary power in ac- 
tion ; the eminent sovereigns and statesmen, the 
great generals, the merchant princes, the pioneers 
in science and the arts, the reformers and philan- 
thropists, and those who have projected and carried 
through new and daring enterprises. To lack en- 
ergy of will, is to lack the main-spring of all deter- 
mined practical activity. It is to be weak, vacilla- 
ting, unstable, incapable of seizing the right moment, 
and unable to grapple with difficulties, or to firm- 
ly meet dangers, in the execution of one's plans. 
Such an infirmity is incompatible with excellence. 

It may be necessary here to distinguish between 
that power of quick and firm decision which belongs 
to a healthfully strong will, and a not uncommon 
counterfeit, which is quite another thing. There is 
a blind and obstinate recklessness, a willing not 
only without reason, but against reason ; a willing 
merely by the promptings of a ruling selfishness 



Self-Culture. 65 

which often exhibits energy enough. But this is 
the energy of spoiled children, who remain children 
even in adult years. It is the energy of passion 
overbearing the rational will and bringing it into 
bondage. It is not only not the enlightened firm- 
ness and decision of a will that is the true and in- 
telligent executive of the soul ; it is a result of a 
weak surrender of the whole being to the dominion 
of vicious inclination. Let no one mistake the ob- 
stinacy of a reigning selfishness, or of some evil dis- 
position, for the high executive power of a well-reg- 
ulated will. 

If you inquire how the true energy of will may 
be attained, the general answer is, that the will, like 
other faculties, is improved by rightly using it. Ac- 
custom yourselves not to depend chiefly on others, 
but to make decisions of your own ; to consider de- 
liberately each practical question that arises and 
then to come to a positive determination on it, if this 
be possible. Every instance in which you say reso- 
lutely, no ! to a seductive temptation ; every time 
that you say firmly, yes ! to the call of self-deny- 
ing duty ; every time that you resist the urgency of 
inclination that would deter you from an arduous 
course of action that your judgment and conscience 
deliberately approve ; every time that in the midst 
5 



66 True Success hi Life. 

of perplexities you can so concentrate your force of 
mind as to decide on the thing to be done without 
vacillation or delay, you will have gained somewhat 
in true executive power. 

Some persons who have been conscious of being 
specially deficient in strength of will have resorted 
to particular expedients to assist their firmness. 
The late Mr. Prescott, the elegant and justly ad- 
mired historian, it is said, used to direct his servant 
to wait, after he had waked him in the morning, 
outside of his chamber door, and if, after a certain 
number of minutes, he had not arisen, to take the 
clothes from the bed and carry them away. To 
confirm his decision to work at a certain rate upon 
his history, he often bound himself in writing to a 
friend to forfeit a specified sum of money if he 
should not accomplish in a given number of weeks 
the task he had imposed upon himself; and he 
never failed to pay the forfeit when incurred. This 
may be thought a desperate remedy ; but it is, at 
least, an example of resolution to maintain the de- 
cisions of the will. It is no doubt, however, better 
to attain a force of will that shall render such expe- 
dients unnecessary. Most persons can accomplish 
this, if really in earnest. Without the power of 
deciding with due promptness, and of adhering firmly 



Self-Culture. 6 J 

to your decisions when they have been made, it 
will be in vain to expect that you will act in life 
with any considerable success. 

Yet further, it is likewise an important part of 
self-culture to subject one's self to the control of 
settled principles. By principles is meant rules or 
laws of action, deliberately and permanently adopted 
for the regulation of one's conduct. It belongs to 
the work of self-culture both to determine carefully 
the principles, or rules which ought to govern us, 
and to establish in our minds the habit of adhering 
to them with fidelity. 

But why should one prescribe to himself princi- 
ples or rules beforehand ? Why not leave ourselves 
entirely free to decide what we will do as each par- 
ticular occasion shall arise ? Because in that case 
we are liable to be called upon to act under the 
strongest biases of feeling, of inclination, of influ- 
ence from others ; in short, under the pressure of 
seductive and powerful temptations. If you have 
accustomed yourself, on the contrary, to regulate 
your conduct by principles which you have settled 
for yourself in your calmest and best moments, you 
have only to see what these principles require of 
you, and you are saved from the difficulty and the 
danger of deciding in circumstances in which unbi- 



68 True Success in Life. 

assed judgment is nearly or quite impossible. This 
is the reason why a man of principle, one who is 
known to have settled for himself right rules of con- 
duct, is readily confided in ; while one who is be- 
lieved to leave every thing to be determined on the 
impulse of the moment, is regarded as wholly unre- 
liable — as quite as likely to go wrong as right. 

Let us illustrate a little what has now been said. 
You are travelling abroad, we will suppose, and on 
a pleasant Sabbath morning you find yourself in the 
city of Paris. A servant takes an early opportunity 
to tell you that there will be a full exhibition of the 
splendid water-works at Versailles upon that day, 
and that, as they are exhibited on Sundays and the 
' greater holidays only, you will have no other oppor- 
tunity to see them. " Of course you will go," he 
adds, " the Americans generally in the hotel are 
going." If now you have not settled the principle 
that you will do nothing inconsistent with the sanc- 
tity of the Sabbath, how will you be almost certain 
to decide ? At home you would have regarded the 
day because those around you did ; and now what 
should hinder you from disregarding it because those 
around you do ? If any qualm of conscience should 
arise, how easily it may be borne away by the influ- 
ence of the temptation present to the mind. For 



Self ^Culture. 69 

want of fixed principles, you may constantly see 
travellers in foreign lands doing without hesitation 
what they would by no means venture on at home. 

Just such examples occur about you every day. 
A person who has not a settled principle in regard 
to social drinking, is in a very poor condition to 
weigh the question fairly when he finds himself in 
the midst of jovial companions and with the goblet 
pressed on his acceptance. If you have not deter- 
mined within yourself, once for all, that your feet 
shall not enter corrupting places of amusement, nor 
your example lead others to enter them, you are but 
little likely to weigh the matter well when the town 
is all agog about some favorite performer ; and you 
hear the gay and the fashionable describing with 
ecstasies the wonders of the performance, and read 
the glowing handbills, and feel the spell of the be- 
wildering fascination. If you have not prescribed to 
yourself the law that you will yield to no fashion 
that trenches on health, or modesty, or morals, you 
are hardly likely to notice at all the moment and the 
act by which you overstep the line of propriety and 
virtue. But I need not add examples. 

It is plain, then, that to every young man and 
woman the settling of sound and wholesome princi- 
ples by which to regulate their lives, is a part of the 



yo True Success in Life. 

work of self-culture not to be neglected. Let the prin- 
ciples be well considered and firmly fixed ; not so nu- 
merous as to embarrass, but general, comprehensive, 
and easily applied. Such principles are, as it were, 
the bones and sinews of a well-developed, strong 
and noble character. Without them neither man 
nor woman can attain to excellence or be really 
worthy of respect. 

I shall name but one thing more which a faithful 
self-culture must include. To a complete character 
enthusiasm is a most essential requisite ; and there 
should be constant care to regulate it where it exists, 
or to awaken and sustain it where it may be 
wanting. 

By enthusiasm I mean the warmth and glow of a 
heathful, steady earnestness ; the ardor which enli- 
vens and vitalizes effort, inspires with confidence 
and hope, and lends the impulse that bears on to 
high endeavor. Without this, character is sure to 
be common-place, and great success in any sphere 
of life is not to be expected. 

In relation to this, as to other qualities, there is 
a great diversity naturally among men and women. 
Some are constitutionally ardent and sanguine even 
to excess. These are liable to be hurried on by 
their intensity of zeal to unwise and rash adven- 



Self-Ctdture. 71 

tures. They are in clanger of carrying sail beyond 
their ballast, to their own peril or destruction. The 
office of culture here is to moderate and steady the 
natural impulses and to keep them within whole- 
some limits, but not to repress them altogether. 
Others again, and these probably the more numer- 
ous, constitutionally lack ardor. They find but little 
of pleasurable excitement in any of their pursuits. 
Whatever they do is done almost mechanically, and 
as if in a cold routine. To such, life can be hardly 
more than a perpetual plodding, without any lively 
interest, any high exhilaration, any remarkable suc- 
cess. The office of culture in the case of persons 
of this class must be to arouse and stimulate the 
soul. Such views of the value of our objects of 
pursuit, of the ends to be attained in living, of the 
duties and perils of our existence, taken as a whole, 
as are fitted to strike the imagination, to interest 
the heart, and to give authority to conscience, must 
be made very familiar to the mind. It is not be- 
cause there is not enough in the position and im- 
pending destinies of every human being to enkindle 
and sustain a serious, fervid earnestness in every 
breast, that it is comparatively rare. It is because 
most of us are so little given to reflection, so little 
disposed to fix our attention on the dangers through 



72 True Success in Life. 

which we have to pass, and on the prizes which God 
has placed within our reach, to be lost or won ac- 
cording as we acquit ourselves, that we do not find 
our hearts habitually fired by an enthusiasm that 
nothing could extinguish. 

Remember, then, you who from your present 
standpoint see the great work of life before you, that 
it is requisite to your best success that to symmetry 
and force of intellect, to refinement and equanimity 
of feeling, to energy of will, and inflexibleness of 
principle, there should be added the ardor of a gen- 
erous enthusiasm. The more positive and earnest 
the interest which you feel in the particular calling 
to which you devote yourselves, and the tasks which, 
without your choice, Providence may assign you, the 
greater, other things being equal, will be your cheer- 
fulness in labor, and the larger the rewards which 
you will win. The more truly and heartily you enter 
into the idea of your relation to God and to the eter- 
nal future, and warm your hearts to the highest as- 
pirations and kindle your zeal to the most strenuous 
tasking of your powers by thoughts of your immor- 
tality, the more you will accomplish in this brief life, 
the more complete will be your characters, and the 
more certainly will you fulfil the end for which God 
gave you being. Oh, when you consider what you 



Self- Cultu re. 7 3 

are, for what this life is intended to prepare you, and 
what possibilities of exaltation, of glory, and of 
blessedness are opened before you in the coming 
ages, of your being, is there not enough to fill you 
with an enthusiastic elevation and eagerness of 
spirit in the discharge of all your duties, and to sus- 
tain it to the end ? It has been undoubtedly the 
men of burning souls that have wrought most effec- 
tually in their lives for the honor of God and the 
welfare of mankind. 

What, then, can I add, in closing, to incite you 
to undertake in earnest and as a life-long task, the 
work of a careful and diligent self-culture. You 
have not understood me as showing you away in 
which to work out for yourselves a salvation through 
your own virtues, and without, the pardon, mercy, 
and grace which are offered in Jesus Christ. In 
this great work of self-culture on which I have in- 
sisted, if you faithfully attempt it, you will feel your 
need of the help the Gospel offers ; and only as you 
accept and use it, will you be able to make your- 
selves what you are required to be. What I have 
sought to do, has been to indicate some of the par- 
ticular steps of that process to which divine wisdom 
calls you of training yourselves, with the light and 
the aid afforded you, for the best and the most use- 



74 True Success in Life. 

ful lives on earth and for the attainment of the eter- 
nal citizenship of Heaven. I know that you will 
admit that you owe it to yourselves and to God who 
made you with such capacities, to spare no pains in 
the cultivation of all excellence and virtue. 

Let me ask you, then, have you entered reso- 
lutely on the work ? Or, if not, will you decide to 
enter on it now ? You admire the skill and not 
less the patience of the sculptor as, with touch after 
touch, he chisels the block of marble till he has 
fashioned it into a beauty on which ages shall look 
with wonder and delight. But ah ! it is a greater 
work, far greater, this work of fashioning your own 
being that it may be wrought unto a Christlike per-' 
fectness ; unto a beauty so divine that it shall com- 
mand the admiration not only of men on earth but 
of the high intelligences of Heaven, and that forever ! 
Let nothing tempt you to neglect it. Remember 
the word of Jesus : a Unto him that hath shall be 
given and he shall have abundance ; but from him 
that hath not shall be taken away even that which 
he hath ! " 



FALSE VIEWS OF LIFE, 



"And they that use this world as not abusing it." — I Cor. vii. 31. 



IV. 

FALSE VIEWS OF LIFE. 

\\ 7HEN we speak of this world as something to 
* * be used, no one understands us to refer to 
this material globe as such ; but to this life, this pres- 
ent stage of earthly existence, and all that it offers to 
us as rational and sentient beings. This scene of 
things in the midst of which, and in intimate relation 
to which, we find ourselves when we awake to con- 
sciousness, is made up of certain well known reali- 
ties. These realities are so arranged by the Creator 
and Ruler of the world that they are fitted to answer 
certain important ends in reference to ourselves. If 
we rightly understand and rightly use them, their 
influence on us will be salutary. If we misunder- 
stand and pervert them, they will work us mischief, 
they may even effect our ruin. Each one of us, 
therefore, for himself is bound to take good heed, 
according to the Apostle's words, " that he use this 
world as not abusing it ;" that is to say, that he order 
his present earthly life wisely and well. 



7 8 True Success in Life. 

But in order that we may direct our lives agree- 
ably to the Divine intention and to the truth of 
things, it is necessary that we understand our actual 
position. False views of life are certain to mislead 
and injure us. Right views are of the utmost con- 
sequence ; for how shall we use life wisely if we fail 
to comprehend its true nature and design ? I wish 
to call your attention to some of the false views of 
life which are most common, and into which those 
on whom life is opening are most likely to fall ; and 
then to set in contrast with these some of those which 
are at once certainly true and inexpressibly im- 
portant. 

First among false views we may notice that 
which takes the world to be a Paradise, or something 
very near it. This illusion is by no means confined 
to childhood, It does not always even belong to 
that. Childhood, sometimes delightfully happy, has 
often its pains and griefs ; and there are many little 
children to whom the world looks dark and sad 
enough. The visionary and unreal aspect of life to 
which I now refer, is the result rather of a peculiar 
constitution and circumstances than of immaturity 
of age. Those persons who have naturally a happy 
temperament, who are susceptible, imaginative and 
ardent, and have happened to be placed in a favor- 



False Views of Life. 79 

able condition in early years, are led to estimate life 
as a whole by what, for the time, they feel it to be 
to them. They enjoy intensely home, friends and 
innocent pleasures. Health quickens every faculty 
and sense, and makes existence itself a luxury. 
Nothing has occurred to awaken them to deep re- 
flection, or to excite their apprehensions in reference 
to the future. The light and joy within their hearts, 
scatter light and joy around. To such, the world 
about them and on before, appears like a charming 
landscape, of a lovely summer's day, when the purest 
sunlight falls ; when the shadows of the trees lie 
dark on the green meadows, soft tints empurple the 
distant mountains, and river and lake are like molten 
silver in their glow. As such a scene in nature may 
so fascinate the imagination and the feelings that 
for the moment it shall be forgotten that the primal 
curse still rests upon the ground ; so life, in the warm 
coloring thrown over it by an exhilarated, joyous 
spirit, may really seem as bright and fair as Eden, 
and one may be beguiled, at least for a time, into 
the fancy that it is nearly or quite as much a place 
for happiness without alloy. Indeed, when this con- 
ception of life has once taken possession of the 
mind, it is not easy to dislodge it. Even far on into 
mature years, and after some stern experiences, the 



8o True Success in Life, 

mind still lives in a sort of dreamland, and clings to 
its romantic and chimerical anticipations ; still per- 
suades itself that, notwithstanding a few mishaps, it 
shall yet find life substantially agreeable and sat- 
isfying. 

The effect of this hallucination on the character 
is in a high degree pernicious. It tends to make 
present pleasures — the frivolous and empty — the 
chief object of thought and of desire ; to prevent 
the development of the stronger and nobler virtues ; 
and to beget a weak, effeminate and self-indulgent 
spirit. It defeats the true purpose of life, and must, 
sooner or later, end in bitter disappointments. It 
produces rose-water men and women, mere butter- 
flies, triflers, where all should be mightily in earnest. 
Life is not an Elysium. 

Next to this erroneous view of life may be men- 
tioned one that is directly opposite in character and 
influence. It is the morbid and ascetic view which 
regards the present world, with all its objects and 
interests, as having no real value, as worthy only to 
be turned from with aversion. This view of life, 
like the last, may be traceable to something in the 
natural disposition ; something which should have 
been resisted and corrected instead of being 
strengthened and made controlling by indulgence. 



False Views of Life. 81 

It may be the result, also, of painful experiences in 
earlier days. If a child, instead of enjoying the 
sweets of parental care and tenderness, has known 
early the pangs of bereavement and wept broken- 
hearted by the grave of father or mother, or both ; 
if the young heart so bereft and yearning to love and 
to be loved, has found itself without objects of affec- 
tion and in contact only with cold indifference ; if 
where it looked for encouragement, sympathy, and 
kindness, it has encountered only repulsion, selfish- 
ness, or even harsh reproach, no wonder that, with 
such an opening, life should look dreary in the pros- 
pect, and that suspicion and distrust of others and 
even fixed misanthropy should take possession of 
the mind. Or if childhood has been fortunate and 
happy, it may be that on coming at a later period 
into contact with men and things, and entering into 
the ordinary relations of social life, fraud, treachery, 
falsehood, wrong, at the hands of others, or disap- 
pointments, calamities, sorrows, and crosses heaped 
as it were on the sufferer by the inexplicable course 
of Providence, have quenched all the cheerful lights 
that used to be seen gleaming along life's pathway, 
and turned the world apparently into a gloomy, des- 
olate waste. There are perhaps not a large number 
who entirely resign themselves to the sombre view 
6 J 



82 True Success in Life. 

of life which is born of untoward circumstances and 
acute susceptibility. But the number is certainly 
great, I believe much greater than is commonly im- 
agined, of those whose days are deeply clouded by 
it, although they resist, with more or less of energy, 
its depressing power. Yet the view of life which 
disposes one to think that all it offers is but a mock- 
ery of our hopes and of our hearts ; that truth and 
justice, disinterestedness and generosity, friendship 
and love, are among mankind but empty names ; 
and that even the best gifts of Divine Providence 
are but uncertain benefits ; is altogether illusory and 
false. It is as far from the reality of things, and 
quite as mischievous, to believe the world to be a 
pandemonium, as to fancy it a Paradise with those 
to whom we at first referred. Both views are a per- 
version of the truth. 

Equally false and evil in its consequences is the 
fatalistic view of life ; that, in other words, which 
regards it as a lottery in which success and failure, 
the^ prizes and blanks, are determined by sheer 
chance. It is not, perhaps, to be wondered at that this 
view should be entertained by those who look only 
at the surface of the world and form a hasty and su- 
perficial judgment. There is, indeed, a sense in 
which time and chance happeneth unto all men, as 



False Views of Life. 83 

the word of inspiration saith. It is true that the race 
is not always to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong. As evil reigns to a great extent and works 
its mischiefs ; as this scene of things is not designed 
to be perfectly retributive ; as the causes by which 
events are brought to pass are many of them so com- 
plicated, or so hidden, that they cannot be distinctly 
seen, there are many things in every human experi- 
ence that appear anomalous, unaccountable, and 
even accidental. But after all, it is plain to reason, 
and is distinctly taught by revelation, that there is a 
settled order, a grand and comprehensive plan, that 
includes all the fortunes of mankind. The laws of 
this are such that sagacity, diligence, tact, prudence, 
courage, patience, perseverance, temperance, self- 
sacrifice, philanthropy and piety are to be regarded 
as in ordinary circumstances, standing related to 
present comfort and success in all circumstances, 
and to permanent well being ; while on the other 
hand, ignorance, idleness, improvidence, pusilanim- 
ity, fickleness, vicious indulgence, selfishness and 
irreligion, as clearly stand related to present de- 
basement and ultimately to ruin. 

Xo indeed. Life is not a lottery. Its prizes 
are not distributed by chance. There can hardly 
be greater folly and presumption than that of those 



84 True Success in Life. 

young men and women who, on setting out in life, 
conclude that it is of no use to mark out for them- 
selves a course and to set themselves, with strenu- 
ous effort and in the use of the proper means, to at- 
tain some worthy end ; who conclude, therefore, to 
commit themselves blindly and heedlessly to the 
current of circumstances ; to drift on the mighty sea 
of life the sport of accidental forces. You would 
pronounce the seaman a fool who, because his ves- 
sel at best might be subject to some contingencies, 
should commit her, helmless, and without direction, 
to be driven where winds and waves and storms 
might chance to carry her. Are not those greater 
fools who are willing to commit to chance the deter- 
mination and the issues of their lives ? It would 
seem impossible that so absurd a view of life could 
be entertained and acted on, were not the case so 
common. Too many, without forecast, leave every- 
thing to accident. 

There is yet another false view of life which is at 
least as common as either of those to which we have 
referred. It is that which regards it as substan- 
tially a game of skill — of course to be played for 
one's own personal advantage. It is the opposite 
of that just described as leaving everything to the 
caprice of fortune. Those who adopt this view are 



False Views of Life. 85 

led, as life opens on them, to notice, that with a 
large, even the larger, portion of those engaged in 
its pursuits, the chief object in living seems to be to 
get for themselves as large a share as possible of 
those things which mankind naturally desire — 
pleasures, riches, honors, and the like. They see 
that all want these ; and that vast multitudes are 
striving eagerly to reach them. They see that some 
are eminently successful, and are conspicuous 
among their fellows in the largeness of their posses- 
sions. Their conclusion is that the great contest 
of life is mainly a contest of wits. He whose wits 
are sharpest, who is most keen to see in what w r ay 
to gain advantage over others, most adroit in all 
strategy, most shrewd in calculation, and most in- 
tent on his own interests, is most likely, they think, 
to turn life to the best account. 

Now while it may be admitted that in this, as in 
other erroneous views, there may be involved a certain 
degree of truth, yet taken altogether the view is really 
false and leads to practical results that are dangerous 
in a high degree. To make life a game of skill to be 
played for one's personal advantage is to surrender 
one's self to the absolute control of selfishness, no 
matter how much of outward grace and elegance 
of person, or of manners, may conceal it. It is to 



86 True Success in Life. 

repress and gradually exterminate the moral senti- 
ments and all the generous and more noble im- 
pulses which belong to the human soul when sub- 
jected to right influence. It is to tread under foot 
at every step the Christian law which binds each to 
love his neighbor as himself, and pay due regard to 
the interests and happiness of others in laboring to 
advance his own. Is it so that the men and women 
have lived who have been the lights and benefactors 
of the world, have written their names indelibly on 
the hearts and memories of men, and in golden 
letters upon the page of history, and have best rep- 
resented the beauty of true goodness in the midst 
of an evil world ? Oh no. It is a vast misunder- 
standing of the nature and purpose of this life to 
make cleverness in management and ingenuity in 
shuffling to one's own advantage, the chief virtues to 
be acquired and practised. Those who do this, how- 
ever fair appearances may be, are like the profes- 
sional gamblers, who, if they may but accumulate 
their shining heaps, are wholly indifferent to the 
agony of broken hearts and the horrors of madness 
and suicide which they occasion. There are but too 
many who gamble for the stakes of life. 

Such are some of the more general false views — 
particular misjudgments are almost endless — which 



False Viezvs of Life. 87 

the young, as the world opens on them, are in danger 
of adopting. To accept these and act upon them is 
to abuse the world, to pervert life from its true 
intent, instead of rightly and wisely using it as God 
designed. 

We turn then from the false to inquire after the 
true. What view or views of life ought those to 
take who find themselves coming forward to encoun- 
ter its realities ? It is plain that the true estimate, 
or conception of life, must be that which is in accord- 
ance with the facts which it presents. What are 
some of the chief of these ? 

The first thing that strikes one on seriously con- 
sidering life is the fact that it seems to have no great 
value in itself. It is not found in actual experience 
to be that scene of unmingled pleasure, of fairyland 
enchantments and bright Arcadian skies, which a 
warm imagination ever inclines to picture to itself. 
Nor is it that utterly gloomy waste, without any- 
thing to cheer, which a morbid melancholy makes it. 
It presents everywhere joy and sorrow, pleasure and 
pain, strangely mingled with each other. It has 
enough that is agreeable to afford many gratifica- 
tions ; and enough that is distressing to render a 
settled happiness here impossible. At best the 



88 True Success in Life. 

enjoyment it affords is interrupted and alloyed, and 
is transient in duration. 

It is plain, then, that since life does not give more 
than a very imperfect happiness, and that for a very 
brief period, its chief value cannot be in what it is. 
An average of twenty-eight or thirty years of min- 
gled griefs and joys, cannot, in any fair judgment, 
be considered as worth much in itself. In the case 
of that very large portion of the race in whose lives 
the element of suffering preponderates, the amount 
of present enjoyment had is so small as to seem but 
trifling. But for that deeply implanted instinct 
which shrinks from the dark mystery of death, mul- 
titudes in their miseries would hasten to cast off life 
as really not worth the having. 

By this fact that life is of little intrinsic value, 
we are led to a second, namely : that its value mainly 
lies in its relation to something higher ; that it is not 
in itself an end, but only a means ; that its real 
worth is to be found not in what it gives, but in what 
it makes us. What though this earthly life does not 
and cannot afford us any considerable amount of 
solid good ? What though it offers us so many flinty 
pathways which we must tread with bleeding feet, 
and so many cups of anguish which we of necessity 
must drink ? Accepting life as having for its main 



False Viezvs of Life. 89 

end the revealing of the hidden energies of our 
nature, the subjection of our wills, the awakening of 
our aspirations, the discipline of our powers, the 
right direction of our affections and our aims, and 
generally, our preparation for a grander, more per- 
fect and enduring scene of existence awaiting us 
beyond this world, it has at once a new aspect, and 
its experiences have a new significance. If there be 
such a future before us, and this life be designed as a 
brief period of preparation for it, then obviously this 
life has a value far beyond that involved in the small 
amount of happiness which, even in the most favor- 
able circumstances, it confers. Its value does not 
lie in the enjoyment it affords. 

And this leads us to the third and most moment- 
ous fact of all, made absolutely sure by the Christian 
revelation — the fact that this life is in truth the first 
stage, or scene, the first act in the drama, of an 
existence that is never to have an end. The ques- 
tion of immortality is settled. To look upon this 
life, uncertain as to its length, imperfect in its 
nature, and apparently accomplishing so little, as 
anything more than a fragment of our entire exist- 
ence is utterly to fail of comprehending it. To act ' 
as if it were the whole, and not a part, is to commit 
the most flagrant and disastrous folly. Is it not 



90 True Success in Life. 

strange that the fact of our immortality should be 
treated by so many as though it were something 
entirely unconnected with the true conception of 
this life ; as though we had two lives to live on 
the two opposite sides of the mortal hour ? Instead 
of this the truth is that the life we here begin shall 
run right on, a unity unbroken, to periods beyond 
the reach of thought. Death, that to which we give 
this name, is but an incident, a point of transition, 
in our progress ! Through it, and beyond it, every 
human being shall steadily hold on his way. It is 
only in accommodation to the appearances of sense 
that we speak of this life and the other life. Your 
life, I repeat, is one and indivisible. You have 
begun your eternity already ! Every day you tread 
this earth will be a portion of it ! You are every 
day thinking, planning, acting, rejoicing, sorrowing, 
choosing, loving, hating, yielding yourself to evil, 
or devoting yourself to good, as one who has already 
begun a career which, from this time forward, is to 
run parallel to the life of God and angels ! Your 
every-day words and thoughts and deeds are a part 
of your immortal history. Your present tastes, tem- 
pers, wishes, habits, affections, enter into and con- 
stitute a part of your immortal character. It is 
only the scene and the circumstances of your being 



False Viezvs of Life. 91 

that are to change. Your life itself is an eternal 
life, for good or ill, already opened and pro- 
gressing. 

It is in the light of these facts to which we have 
now referred, young men and women, that you gain 
the true view of what this earthly life that now opens 
on you, really is. It is a small matter considered 
simply in itself ; it is in its imperfection suggestive 
of something higher to which it has relation ; it is, 
in fact, the first, and therefore a most important 
stage, of an eternal being. In the presence of these 
facts every right life must be planned ; with refer- 
ence to them every right life must be executed in 
all, even the least details. In the presence of these 
facts those false views which we noticed at the out- 
set, and others like them, appear in all their empti- 
ness, and vanish into air. Life — this comparatively 
poor, low, troubled, unsatisfying life — becomes at 
once sublime. Not for pleasure, not for vain com- 
plainings, not for idle hopes, not for present self- 
aggrandizement, is it appointed. The true life now, 
is the very life in its spirit, its aims, and the direc- 
tion of its activities, that, continued and carried to 
perfection, will place us on the level of angels, and 
raising us above all the infelicities and griefs of 
earth, will set us pure and good and happy among 



92 Trtte Success in Life, 

the sons of light that surround the throne of 
God. 

But possibly to some of you it may seem that 
there is something sombre in this view. To con- 
sider this present life not a thing by itself, but as 
simply the first section, or scene, of a life that for 
joy or woe is essentially eternal, is too serious, and 
will cast over it, you think, a gloomy shadow. But 
why should this be so ? Can it be so, unless there 
is something wrong in your state of feeling ? Is 
this view of life any more serious than the facts ? 
No, unless you wish to live as mere triflers in this 
world, abusing the present and not using it for its 
true end, there is nothing that should cast a shade 
upon your spirits, in the view of this life as 
immortality begun. What can be better fitted to 
give cheerfulness and ardor to your hearts, to make 
labor and even suffering tolerable, to reconcile you 
to whatever the course of daily life may bring in all 
its checkered scenes, than the thought of reaping 
the rewards of all that you rightly do and bear, even 
millions of ages hence ? What can be so inspiring 
in forming your friendships, in choosing your pur- 
suits, in making your acquisitions, in rightly order- 
ing your families and homes, in exerting an influ- 
ence for good on those around you, as the recollec- 



False Views of Life, 93 

tion that you are doing all, not for these hasty years 
alone, but for years that shall never end ? Who 
can have such reason to respect himself, who is so 
likely to act well and nobly in every earthly sphere, 
and to be happy in his lot, as he who bears it ever 
in his thought that he is taking the first steps of an 
interminable, rational, and responsible existence ; 
is climbing to the same platform on which the an- 
gels stand ; and who in the light and by the aid 
which the blessed gospel gives, is endeavoring to 
act accordingly. 

Take then, I pray you, the right, the highest 
view of life. Let this govern you in all your course 
of living. You cannot do this and spend life in 
dreaming, or complaining ; in waiting on chance, or 
in trying to gain advantage of your fellows. Think 
daily what you are, and what a future opens itself 
before you ? Pity the frivolous, who, because they 
choose to be so, never think of what is most worthy 
of their thought ; and turn from them to associates 
more deserving regard and in whom you may find 
companionship and sympathy forever. Place before 
you as your model, that only perfect model life in 
the worlds historv- — the life of Him who not only 
left you His divine example, but who also otters you 
the loving hand of His effectual help, that so if you 



94 Trite Success in Life. 

will, you may ascend with steady step the eter- 
nal heights of that blessed, glorious life which the 
good shall live in heaven, when all that belongs to 
earth, when even the earth itself, has perished ! 



THE TWO CONTESTS OF LIFE. 



" I find then a law that, when I would do good, evil is present 
with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man."' — 
Rom. VII. 21, 22. 



THE TWO CONTESTS OF LIFE. 

r 1 ^HE world has always been full of contests of 
•*- one sort or another. They form the staple of 
history. They constitute the charm of romances. 
They supply the incident and the more exciting ele- 
ments of the higher kinds of poetry. They have 
been waged sometimes for trifles and sometimes for 
great issues of right or wrong. The study of them 
is instructive as illustrating most strikingly the ac- 
tivity and energy that belong to the human soul. 
With what deep interest have we all read of the 
great struggles between opposing disputants and 
rival statesmen, heroes, kings and empires. 

The same things are going forward now. Con- 
tests of mind, of religious and metaphysical opinion, 
of political and social systems, and of material force, 
are all the while shaking every portion of the world. 
We do right in allowing ourselves to become pro- 
foundly interested in these struggles of our time, 
lor they are many of them of very great importance. 
7 



98 True Success in Life. 

Yet, after all, the most momentous of all con- 
tests to every human being is the one which is main- 
tained in the depths of his own bosom. Those that 
are without us may, or may not, affect us seriously. 
That which is within us stands always and necessa- 
rily in direct relation to our welfare. It might seem 
at first view that the contests going forward in indi- 
vidual minds were almost infinitely various ; for the 
inward history of different persons will, in many 
particulars, be found totally unlike. But while this 
is true, it is also certain that these varieties may in 
fact be reduced to two, namely : the contest of pre- 
dominant evil struggling against good, and the con- 
test of predominant good struggling against evil. 
These are the two great contests of every human 
life. With the experiences of the one, or the other, 
of these, each human heart must be acquainted. 
Each mortal, by the necessity of his own constitu- 
tion, must either yield himself to evil and pursue 
that, in opposition to what is seen to be good, or de- 
vote himself to good and pursue that in opposition 
to what is seen to be evil. Christ clearly taught 
this, and reason clearly perceives that it must be so. 

Let us, then, look first at the contest of evil 
against good. How comes such a contest to exist 
in the souls of men ? Can it be that there are any 



The Two Contests of Life. 99 

who are deliberately bent on pursuing what is evil — 
so bent that thev resist and contend against what- 
ever might keep them from it ? Alas, that this must 
be admitted to be the condition of by far the larger 
portion of mankind ! It is in this fact, especially, 
that selfishness does naturally and spontaneously 
assert itself in every human heart and claim domin- 
ion there, that we so clearly appear to be a fallen 
race. This is the essence of evil in the soul, its pur- 
pose to please itself. This is the inward force by which 
all who lead wrong lives are borne on to the differ- 
ent kinds and degrees of wickedness which the 
world everywhere presents. It is not necessary that 
any person should deliberately adopt self-gratifica- 
tion as his end. It is the end for which, without 
deliberation, we all began to live in earliest child- 
hood, and to which each one, as a matter of course, 
continues to live, till, by deliberate choice and pur- 
pose, it is heartily abandoned. The difference be- 
tween evil men is merely a difference of degrees. 
Self-pleasing, the putting self in the place of God, is 
the radical element of character in all alike. 

But there is in every human bosom something 
that resists this evil life of selfishness, whatever par- 
ticular form it may assume. It is the force of moral 
conviction, of the sense of dutv and of right, protest- 



100 True Success in Life. 

ing against a habit of living which is felt to be un- 
worthy of the soul. In the case of every one whose 
chief aim is to do his own will and not God's will, 
this protest, however earnest and emphatic, is wholly 
unavailing. Its influence is habitually overborne by 
sinful inclination, so that evil rules, within the heart. 
But here are the elements of inward conflict. This 
is the secret of that restlessness which is commonly 
felt by the worldly mind. Though under the domin- 
ion of evil, that dominion is disputed by a solemn 
voice coming up from the depths of the conscious 
soul ; a voice sometimes almost drowned, perhaps, 
by the pleadings of appetite, passion and interest, 
and sometimes making itself heard with fearful 
authority and power. In this contest of evil against 
good, unless it be arrested by a radical change of 
character, evil more or less rapidly gains ground, 
while the resisting force on the side of good grows 
weaker, until at last the sway of evil becomes abso- 
lute and its victory complete. Oh melancholy fate, 
when any mortal has contended against good so 
long that he has ceased to have any struggle within 
himself ! 

Let us take an example or two in illustration of 
these statements. 

Suppose a young person at twenty, who has had 



The Two Contests of Life. 101 

the ordinary advantages of education and of favora- 
ble circumstances. He has advanced to the thresh- 
old of active life. For years his mind has been 
waking up, and his tastes, habits and purposes have 
been forming. He has understood the main facts 
both of natural and revealed religion, and has not 
been disposed to question them. He has felt the 
impression of Christian example and instruction, 
perhaps, in connection with all that is delightful in 
the tenderness of honored parents and of the well- 
ordered family circle. He has habitually heard the 
sweet sound of Sabbath bells, has mingled with the 
company of worshippers, and has listened to the les- 
sons of Christian truth. On the other hand, he has 
found kindling in his heart desires for such things 
as the world generally pursue ; for the pleasures and 
excitements of social life, for the gratifications prom- 
ised by wealth, by high position, by the esteem or 
the applauses of men. His childhood and youth 
have been amiable and virtuous to the eye of the 
observer, and without a stain upon his character, 
he comes forward into life with the settled purpose 
to be an enterprising, diligent, upright and honora- 
ble man, whatever may be his particular pursuit. 
He has not proposed it to himself to make the ful- 
filment of his duty to God the highest purpose of his 



102 Trice Success in Life, 

life ; but apart from this, his character seems fault- 
less ; and so cheerfully does he appear to have come 
on thus far, that the thought of any contest main- 
tained within him does not perhaps occur to those 
who have known him best. 

But now imagine that, in some moment of confid- 
ing freedom, this young man should open to you his 
deepest heart, and tell you what he could of his 
inner history. Would no contest be revealed ? I have 
intended to place before you the most favorable case 
possible ; and yet beyond all doubt there would. 
Even if his parents were not religious people, be sure 
that the Godward instincts of that young soul were 
felt in early years. If he w r as surrounded with an 
atmosphere of piety, his habits of thought and feel- 
ing and the sensibility of his conscience were more 
or less affected by it. He could not help recogniz- 
ing, often, the duty of living to please God and to 
attain true goodness. Many a time his heart was 
touched with tender feeling and his eyes were filled 
with tears, in some hour of thoughtfulness, or at the 
family altar, or in the place of worship. At such 
times conscience commended the right and con- 
demned the wrong ; and the deep and inexpressible 
yearnings of the soul for something adapted to meet 
its highest wants were most distinctly felt. And so 



The Two Contests of Life. 103 

the truth is, that this young person, chargeable with 
no vice but only with living to himself, has had a 
steady struggle in his bosom. He has been obliged 
to contend against his reason, his conscience, and 
all the better impulses of his soul — a soul divine in 
its affinities and not made for an earthly and merely 
selfish life. Such, in brief, would be a true account 
of his experience. It is a true picture of the expe- 
rience of the best class of those who live for self 
alone. 

But the case of course becomes still stronger, if 
you suppose yourself to come to a knowledge of the 
inward history of one who, born and educated in 
circumstances such as have been described, does 
not subject himself to sufficient restraint to make 
him moral, but yields to appetite and passion, and 
indulges in some, or in many, forms of open 
sin. The moral man is often so deceived by his 
morality, that he may mistake it for true goodness, 
and at length forget that it covers an evil, because a 
thoroughly selfish, heart. But one who deliberately 
yields to temptation and determines he will get the 
pleasures of sinful indulgence, of course does greater 
violence to his own moral nature. It is not true 
that the dishonest, the sensual, the profane, the ma- 
licious, those who live only to waste their time and 



104 True Success in Life. 

opportunities, to squander their property, to abuse 
their talents, to ruin their health, dishonor their fam- 
ilies and curse the world, advance by easy steps on 
their evil course, however reckless they may seem. 
John Bunyan tells us that in his early life he gave 
himself up to " cursing, swearing, lying, and blas- 
pheming the holy name of God until these things 
became as a second nature" to him; "and yet," 
says he, " the Lord did even then scare and affright- 
en me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with 
fearful visions. For often after I had spent the day 
in sin, I have in my bed been greatly afflicted while 
asleep with the apprehension of devils and wicked 
spirits, who still, as I then thought, labored to draw 
.me away with them, of which I never could be rid." 
His moral convictions, if drowned by day, would yet 
be heard in the silent night watches ; and it was 
only by a perpetual war against them that he held 
on his evil course. 

So in the case of Augustine, whose celebrated 
confessions most fully lay open the struggles of a 
soul living to itself, an earthly and sensual life. 
Every page, almost, records the details of the strife 
which was evermore returning between conscience 
on the one side, and the higher aspirations of his 
soul, and the persistent purpose which he cherished 



The Two Contests of Life. 105 

to yield himself to the indulgences of appetite and 
sense on the other. "I bore about," says he, "a 
shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being 
borne by me, yet where to repose it I found not. 
Not in calm groves, not in games and music, nor in 
fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in 
voluptuous pleasures, nor, finally, in books or poesy, 
found it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea the 
very light. To thee, O Lord, my soul ought to have 
been raised, for thee to lighten it of its huge load of 
misery. I knew it; but neither could nor would. 
Thus I was to myself a hapless spot, where I could 
neither stay, nor hence depart ; for whither could my 
heart flee from my heart ? " 

It would be easy to multiply examples of this 
sort. Multitudes of men and women have acknowl- 
edged that the living a worldly, selfish life, has in- 
volved, in their experience, a contest often accom- 
panied with bitter self-reproaches and with inward 
anguish, which has seemed at times intolerable. 
Every young person choosing to yield to the desires 
of the naturally evil heart, and to make life a con- 
test against good, must count on finding the remon- 
strances of conscience, the gnawings of remorse, and 
the pleadings of inward want so urgent, that real 
peace will be a stranger to the breast. The only 



io6 True Success in Life. 

relief, if the contest against good goes on to its natu- 
ral consummation, is the dreadful one afforded by 
the complete ascendancy of evil, and the virtual 
rooting out of all that originally belonged to the soul 
as made in the likeness of God. When devotion to 
evil has virtually destroyed the moral nature, then 
evil has triumphed, and good is possible no more. 
Unless the contest against good be effectually ar- 
rested, as it was in the case of Bunyan and Augus- 
tine, such must be its inevitable issue, always. The 
lion, in the eastern fable, that, taken as a harmless 
playmate while very young, grew unnoticed until he 
devoured his owner, may well illustrate the result 
of evil, fully developed and left without restraint. 

From the contest of evil against good let us turn 
now to the opposite — that of good against evil. 

As the essence of evil in the heart that resists 
good is selfishness, a living to please one's self, so 
the essence of the good in the heart that is set 
against evil, is the abandonment of self in the choice 
and purpose to live for God and goodness. It need 
only here be said, that the whole system of recover- 
ing and saving influence which divine love has sup- 
plied through the redemption by Jesus Christ, is 
fitted and designed to produce and sustain this 
choice and purpose in every human soul that can be 



The Two Contests of Life. 107 

reached by its blessed power. Through divine grace 
in the gospel, some are brought to put God in the 
place of self, and to make devotion to Him, a living 
to please him, the chief end of existence. All such, 
by this inward revolution, enlist in a contest of good 
against evil, to be perpetually maintained — main- 
tained with earnest and often painful effort, till the 
struggle issues in the final extermination of evil 
and the triumphant ascendancy of good within the 
soul. 

It is in the progress of this conflict that all that 
is most interesting, most beautiful, most noble and 
impressive in human character and action, is exhib- 
ited. The other contest of which we have just been 
speaking, the successful war of the lower principles 
against the higher, is repulsive alike in conception 
and in results. But in the thought of the moral na- 
ture of the soul, including the reason, the conscience, 
the higher affections and aspirations, asserting itself 
successfully against the meaner appetites and pas- 
sions, and the unworthy desires and aims, and devel- 
oping in its conflict with them, the whole circle of 
true virtues, there is something that may well 
awaken sympathy and kindle a hearty admiration. 

There is a little child, in whose tender heart the 
contest against evil is really begun. It is a little 



108 Trite Success in Life. 

girl, we will suppose ; and one not nurtured from 
infancy in the lap of healthful piety, and not accus- 
tomed to an atmosphere of purity such as belongs to 
a well ordered Christian home ; but, on the con- 
trary, born and cradled in the abode of vulgarity, 
intemperance, and the kindred debasing vices. By 
a stern necessity she has been in constant contact 
with defilement. But, in spite of all, she has been 
kept, by some unseen power, from becoming herself 
debased. Good influences have reached her heart 
effectually, and in it the contest of good against evil 
is begun. She has herself the common human na- 
ture, with its evil tendencies and passions. But a 
sense of duty, a love for, and a reaching towards that 
which is pure and good, abides within her soul. 
Unkindness and hardship she endures with affecting 
patience, therefore. She is dutiful to parents whom 
she has no reason to respect. In her secret thoughts 
she is bent on pleasing God, and trying to be good, 
though at almost every hour of every day she is 
obliged to contend against obstacles which seem 
enough to discourage a stronger nature. And so 
she lives, contends and shines. She fights her way, 
as she advances in years, to goodness ; and, to the 
eye of God, who alone understands her strivings, 
walks as an an2;el anions: demons. What on earth 



The Two Contests of Life. 109 

is more worthy to be admired than the contest of 
good with evil in such a case as this. 

Or take the case of a young man in whose heart 
either in childhood or early youth, the strife against 
evil has been earnestly begun. See him as life be- 
gins really to open on him. He has within him all 
the quick susceptibilities and the restlessness of 
desire which belongs to the young heart. He has 
the warmth of imagination which makes everything 
look fair. The world offers him its prizes. Pleasure 
invites him to her indulgences. Fashion urges on 
him her yoke. His social nature pleads for com- 
panionship, and dangerous associates call him to 
join their circles and to cast in his lot among them. 
Ambition holds her offered distinctions before his 
eyes, and the fine gold invites him to make that his 
trust. 

In these circumstances, it is easy to see that 
every day must bring its trials to be endured, to 
difficulties to be surmounted, its battles to be fought 
in adhering to the right. Evil urges, to dissuade 
from it, the most plausible arguments and the most 
subtle and often really perplexing sophistries. There 
must be wrestling at every step. But in proportion 
as the young contestant is true to his choice of God 
and goodness, he steadily gains ground. He be- 



I io True Success in Life. 

comes master of himself. He forms a taste for inno- 
cent and solid pleasures, and for pursuits that are 
worthy of his higher and better nature. He ad- 
vances towards the ideal of that perfect manhood to 
which God would raise him, and which, as immortal, 
he is sure at length to reach. Ah ! this is true glory 
won. No distinctions won at the cannon's mouth 
without high moral purpose, can be compared with 
that achieved as we have just described, by that 
young man, or woman either, who, in the love of 
good, maintains the contest against evil. 

Such instances as these are but examples of the 
contest of good against evil, in its ordinary forms 
and as every day presented. But in certain circum- 
stances, and on more rare occasions, it takes a still 
higher type. We have placed it before us, thus far 
only as involving so much of self-denial as is neces- 
sary in order to self-control, and so much effort as 
is requisite to virtuous living. But it has been 
very often found that the contest against evil may 
even demand complete self-sacrifice, the suffering 
of the loss of all things, and the laying down of life. 
No one who commits himself to it can foresee how 
much it may demand of him : and no one should 
think himself committed to it, who is not determined 
to maintain it at all costs. It is one of the saddest 



The Two Cojitests of Life. 1 1 1 

facts in the history of the world, and one of the 
clearest proofs of its corrupt condition, that almost 
every right, or privilege, that the mass of mankind 
enjoy, has been obtained by the groans and tears 
and blood of suffering virtue. What civil right is 
there for which patriots, in love to God and to their 
kind, have not given themselves to die ? What reli- 
gious right or opportunity is there, to gain which 
good and noble men, to whom principle was dearer 
than life, have not parted from wife and children 
and whatever was most dear, to pine in the wretched 
prison, and to accept the cruel fagot and the mur- 
derous block. Yes, and not only men, but tender 
women, and even children, by thousands are enrolled 
on this heroic catalogue of those who have contend- 
ed against evil : unto death. When the contest 
against evil, and in the love and on behalf of good, 
thus carries those who wage it to the practice of 
the virtues that are hardest to be attained by mor- 
tals ; when it bears them up the rugged steeps of 
duty though they must tread them with bleeding 
feet ; when it makes them Christ-like in self-sacri- 
fice, in disinterestedness, and in unflinching fidelity 
to duty ; then it has reached its highest stage, and 
the honor and blessedness of complete and final vic- 
tory is on the point of being realized. It only re- 



H2 True Success in Life. 

mains to them to hear the divine Master say : " Well 
done ; " and to receive from His loving hands the 
eternal crown. 

I have thus endeavored to bring distinctly before 
your thoughts, young men and women, the two mo- 
mentous contests, the one or the other of which is, 
and must be, ever going forward in every human soul, 
in each of yours as well as others. The greatness of 
the subject makes it impossible to do it justice 
within the limits that bound us here. But even in 
this brief view of the matter there is enough to 
awaken every mind to earnest thought. How all 
the endless varieties of human character and action 
are made to arrange themselves in a form to be 
easily comprehended by the light which is afforded 
by our theme ! How clearly we are made to see the 
true import and object of this life ! Especially, how 
forcibly does it exhibit the weakness, the absurdity, 
the stupendous guilt of a frivolous and reckless mode 
of living ! 

What then, you ask, perhaps, do I hope to ac- 
complish by these few, feeble words ? To lead you, 
if possible, each for himself and herself, to ask and 
to answer the question : In which of the two great 
contests am I personally engaged ? Let no one 
turn aside the inquiry with the thought — " Oh ! I am 



The Two Contests of Life, 113 

not engaged in any contest. I have not taken sides 
as yet. I must suffer life's currents for awhile to 
drift me here and there without any end or aim.' J 
No, the true meaning of this is : "I am content for 
the present, against the consciousness of what I owe 
to God and my better self, to yield to evil inclina- 
tion, and let selfishness have rule within me." Not 
vet strenuously, but reallv, vou have begun the 
fearful struggle of evil against good, against con- 
science, against the instincts of your soul, against 
divine instructions and monitions ; you are going on 
to wage it. If you persist, you will find that there 
are fierce struggles to be gone through ; and then 
we have seen that the end will be the final effacing 
from your soul of every lineament and trace of holy 
beauty, of every semblance of true goodness ; and 
the final enthronement in it of evil in all its native 
ugliness, and with all its retinue of woes. 

Standing at the gateway of the more active 
scene of life, it is time not only that you should un- 
derstand your true position and purposes, but that 
you should deliberately adopt that contest as yours, 
which alone becomes you, and gives value to your 
life. I joy in the thought that not a few of you have 
done this, drawn by the love of God and the grace of 
Jesus Christ. You, then, I would stimulate to press 



H4 True Success in Life. 

on, faithfully and boldly, to that truly glorious, that 
blissful consummation, in which goodness, forever 
triumphant, shall clothe you in the beautiful gar- 
ments of angelic purity, and give you in fulness 
angelic life and joy, and crown you with honors such 
as angels wear ; shall, in short, make each of you what 
God designed, a child of God, a divinely perfect 
creature. By the thought of what is due to Him, 
who gave your marvellous being ; to Him who, 
Himself, for your sake and that of others, came down 
to earth to contend in the interest of good and 
against evil, to the suffering of death ; by the bliss 
of being counted at last in the ranks of the finally vic- 
torious army of the living God, whom He Himself 
shall amply recompense for every bitter struggle in 
the life-contest manfully gone through ; I pray you 
to contend with all your might from day to day on 
the side of goodness, till the last hour of your mor- 
tal life. 



THE LAW OF HABIT. 



"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? 
Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." — Jer. 
xiii. 23. 



VI. 

THE LAW OF HABIT, 

r I "HERE are seen on every side those who are 
■*■ not only wicked, but addicted to wickedness for 
a long period. As a consequence of this, they are 
urged on by an inward impulse, a resistless force, to 
continue to do evil, until it seems as vain to hope 
that thev will renounce it, as to look for a natural 
impossibility. It is one of the many mysteries of 
our being that custom establishes habit, and that 
habit acts on us with the steadiness and power of 
inexorable law. 

The word habit is derived from a Latin word 
which signifies to have. It denotes that which we 
have, or that which remains to us, as the result 
within ourselves, from the repetition of anv state or 
act. This result, it is well known, is a propensity 
to do again anything that has been done repeatedly ; 
a propensity which is involuntary, and back of any 
thought or purpose. This inward impulse, or ten- 
dency, to go on doing what we have been wont to do, 



1x8 True Success in Life. 

is like an instinct in its spontaneousness. Both 
prompt to action without antecedent thought. But 
there is this important difference between them, that 
instinct is implanted by the Creator, while habit is 
altogether acquired. Our constitutional instincts are 
what God has been pleased to give us. Our habits 
are what we have allowed ourselves to form. 

What I propose at present is, to awaken some 
serious thought in the minds of those who are now 
passing the period of youth, on the very great 
importance of turning this law of habit to the 
best possible account. I shall endeavor to present 
some of the chief aspects of the subject by several 
suggestions more or less intimately related. 

Let it be observed then that in youth, the power 
of habit, in ordinary cases, is but very partially es- 
tablished. This simply for the reason that suffi- 
cient time has hardly been allowed as yet. Many 
habits are no doubt acquired even in the progress of 
childhood, and these sometimes become afterward 
the settled habits of life. Happy were it did parents 
and others who have the care of children, more con- 
stantly bear in mind the fact that, even in the earli- 
est years, forces may be set at work within them 
which shall grow with their growth and strengthen 
with their strength till they become controlling. 



The Law of Habit, 119 

Still in childhood, and onward till the period of 
youth is passed, character is comparatively flexible 
and elastic. As new views are obtained and new 
feelings awakened from time to time, new and very 
various impulses are given to thought and to desire. 
The mind is hurried from one thing to another, often 
in opposite directions ; and now it tries this experi- 
ment and now that ; so that there is not enough of 
constancy to any given course, perhaps, in most 
things, to produce habits and to confirm them. Even 
in those instances in which the young become ex- 
ceedingly wicked and apparently hardened in their 
wickedness, we are still wont to derive some hope 
of their recovery from the fact that they cannot yet 
have gone on long enough in their evil course to 
have subjected them to the fully developed power of 
evil habit. They are, as yet, urged to the indulgen- 
ces of sin more by craving appetites and easily ex- 
cited passions, than by any settled bent or propen- 
sity of mind. Hence it is no uncommon thing for 
such to be recovered from their vices ; and that 
sometimes by very simple means. Take, for exam- 
ple, the case of that great and excellent man, the late 
Rev. Richard Cecil, of London. In spite of a Chris- 
tian education, he early departed from the ways of 
virtue and gave himself up to all sorts of folly and 



J20 True Success in Life. 

vice ; and then very naturally renounced Christian- 
ity and avowed a thorough infidelity. Yet some ap- 
parently slight circumstances, through the divine 
blessing, availed to change his character. 

" My father," says he, " had a religious servant. 
I frequently cursed and reviled him. He would 
only smile on me. That went to my heart. I felt 
that he looked on me as a deluded creature. I felt 
x that he thought he had something which I knew not 
how to value, and that he was, therefore, greatly my 
superior. I felt there was a real dignity in his con- 
duct. It made me appear little even in my own 
eyes." 

Again, he adds: "I shall never forget standing 
by the bed of my sick mother. * Are not you afraid 
to die ? ' I asked her. c No, no/ ' Why does the 
uncertainty of another state give you no unconcern ? ' 
* Because God has said to me fear not : when thou 
passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and 
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.' The 
remembrance of this scene has oftentimes drawn an 
ardent prayer from me that I might die the death of 
the righteous." It was because he was, as yet, a 
young man, not so accustomed to do evil as to be 
fully subjected to the established law of habit, that 
by such means he was won back again to goodness. 



The Law of Habit. 12 1 

Any number of such cases may be found. They 
clearly show that youth, even though it be wayward, 
is still in a good measure free ; or at least not fixed 
by the force of habit beyond the possibility of change. 
There is great interest in this fact to Christian pa- 
rents and to all who are anxiously watching the for- 
mation of character in the young. It is a fact which 
the young themselves should bear in mind, that 
whatever mistakes they may have made, and into 
whatever errors and even vices thev mav have fallen, 
for them, the attempt to learn to do well is not yet 
hopeless like that of the Ethiopian to change his 
skin, or the leopard his sppts. They are not to de- 
spair of success in resolute efforts at amendment. 

But this leads us to say further, that the process 
of forming and fixing habits is, in youth, rapidly and 
unconsciously going forward all the while. Why 
should this process advance with special rapidity 
in youth ? Because that is the time in which 
all the activities of mind and body are the greatest, 
as, in another connection, we have shown. The 
soul rejoices in the consciousness of faculties but 
lately found, but growing every day more vigorous ; 
and in the freshness of their energies, delighting to 
employ themselves intensely and in a variety of 
ways. The powers of the body, too, find exertion in 



122 True Success in Life. 

itself a pleasure ; and while body and mind are full 
of all the impulses of opening life, there come 
crowding on the attention a multitude of questions 
to be settled, of obiects to be pursued, of plans to be 
decided on, and of labors to be attempted. The 
young enter into this intensity of action as begin- 
ners- — as those whose modes of thinking and of 
doing are all unformed and their natures yet plastic. 
It must be true, therefore, that habits wdll be rapidly 
initiated and confirmed on which the future charac- 
ter will very materially depend. 

Yet there is nothing in this process of forming 
habits to make one conscious of it. It is a process 
that goes on in the hidden chambers of one's being. 
You do a particular thing for the first time. You do 
not perceive that the doing of it has produced any 
other result in you than the pleasure or the pain in- 
volved in the act itself. It has, however, as will 
after a time appear. A stream of water let fall upon 
a rock seems not at first to make the least impres- 
sion ; but watch it long enough, and you find at last 
that it has worn for itself a groove along which it 
flows with little friction. So, though no effect is 
perceptible from a single action, yet let it be re- 
peated to the twentieth or the fiftieth time, and then 
it will be seen that insensibly a groove has been 



The Law of Habit. 123 

made — if so materialistic an analogy may be used — 
in your mysterious being, along which the same sort 
of activity may flow with great facility. While you 
have not thought of such a thing, in other words, a 
tendency, or habit, has been established and more 
or less confirmed. 

This fact that habit may be formed, and com- 
monly is, by an unconscious process, is one that 
every young person should not only thoroughly com- 
prehend but always bear in mind. For want of this 
it constantly occurs that young persons awake sud- 
denly to the discovery that they have unconscious- 
ly formed habits against which they would have 
guarded carefully if they had even suspected them- 
selves of tending in any degree to form them. No 
young person of average morals would deliberately 
consent to become an habitual liar or swearer. But 
the truth is perverted, or false statements made, or 
profane words let fall occasionally, and with the in- 
tention that these things shall be only exceptional 
and rare ; and ere long it is discovered that the 
falsehood and the oath seem ever at the lips and 
ready to find utterance. No respectable young man 
or woman would consent, were the thing deliberately 
proposed, to become a tale-bearer, a gossip, a scan- 
dal-monger ; but a tattling, or an envious and mis- 



124 True Success in Life. 

chief-making spirit, is indulged a little ; and erelong 
it has come to pass that to be a busybody in other 
people's matters, and to dissect satirically and bit- 
terly their characters, and publish abroad their faults, 
seems simply a matter of course. No well-disposed 
parent would think of such a thing as making drunk- 
ards of his children, nor children dream of ever be- 
coming such ; but the wine, or other intoxicating 
elements are daily placed upon the table, or con- 
nected with social pleasures ; and at last it is dis- 
covered that the fatal appetite has been produced 
and the case admits no remedy. So in respect to 
things without number. Constantly, yet by a silent 
and imperceptible process, in the formative period 
of youth, the force of habit is generated and strength- 
ened from day to day. Dishonesty, avarice, ex- 
travagance, pride, indolence, sensuality, bad tem- 
per, or bad manners, with other vices which deform 
the character, have come to be a second nature, 
without any suspicion awakened of what was going 
on. The mischief has been done before the thought 
of danger has occurred. 

It is likewise to be noted, that inasmuch as it is 
the law of habit that it steadily grows stronger by 
continuance, it is sure at last to become inexorable 
and absolute in its control. If a habit has but lately 



The Law of Habit. 125 

been established, its power is of course compara- 
tively, feeble. By some resistance of the will, or 
some counteracting influence, it may be neutralized 
and overcome. A very considerable part of the 
work of education, of self-education particularly, 
consists in the detection of incipient evil habits, and 
the use of proper means to break their force and to 
correct them. It is because this may be done suc- 
cessfully, before the type of the character is firmly 
set, that youthful years have a value so unspeak- 
able. 

But the power of habit not only increases with 
time, but the longer the time the more rapid the 
ratio of its increase ; that is to say, the longer it con- 
tinues the more rapidly it gains strength. It must 
then reach a point beyond which it is sure to carry 
all before it, to rule with absolute sway. You 
are on a mountain top. You will roll a stone 
down into the vale below. At first it moves 
but slowly; for the summit is almost level. Then it 
moves easier and faster ; yet still it might be stayed. 
.But with every rod of progress it gains additional 
momentum. At length it becomes resistless. It 
goes bounding, sweeping, crashing, till it has reached 
the plain. 

By such an example the progressive power of 



126 True Success' in Life. 

habit may receive fitting illustration. It is, more- 
over, unfortunately true, because of our natural pro- 
pensity to evil, that evil habits increase in strength 
more rapidly by far than habits that are good. They 
become likewise more imperative and controlling. 
In yielding to any evil impulse so as to form an evil 
habit, you weaken your power of self-command, at 
the same time that you augment the evil force with 
which the habit acts upon you. It inevitably, there- 
fore, and speedily, comes to pass that evil habits, 
continued, establish a dominion which imposes a 
dreadful bondage — a bondage which, when you 
awake to the fact of its existence, you strive in vain, 
perhaps with tears and agonies, to break. Every 
day supplies illustrations of the statement that, when 
once the power of an evil habit has reached a 
certain point, the person who is subject to it might 
as well lie bound in adamantine chains, so far as re- 
gards any effectual resistance by his own unaided 
strength. How often has the debauchee declared 
that though the vulture of remorse was preying on 
his soul, and his flesh and body were consumed, be- 
cause of his long yielding to the vilest passions, he 
must yet go on to yield ! How often does the vic- 
tim of opium, or other narcotic, deliberately persist 
in the deadly indulgence, although he clearly per- 



The Law of Habit. \2*j 

ceives the approach of palsy, imbecility and death ! 
Who has not known the inebriate to grasp the cup 
and carry it to his lips, even while he protested that 
he felt within him the misery of hell, but must drink 
it, though he were certain that in the act he would 
plunge into hell itself! One of the most affecting 
things that I ever remember to have read was a let- 
ter from a young man who, in his early manhood, 
was dying of his vices, far away from the home of 
his childhood, addressed to his brother, then just 
coming into youth. He had himself resisted the 
entreaties, and disappointed the hopes and almost 
broken the heart, of a godly mother, and w r as still 
going on to meet the dreadful penalty ; but though 
he could not save himself, he could not bear that a 
beloved brother should come to the same miserable 
end. By every argument he begged him not to 
allow the power of evil habit to begin to be felt on 
him. With most affecting entreaties he besought 
him to. take warning from his fate, and to keep him- 
self beyond the outmost circuit of the mighty whirl- 
pool so certain to draw in and to engulf all that 
should come within its sweep. 

So I have heard a man in the maturity of his 
manhood declare, w T ith an agony that was touching, 
that against the power of his evil habits he was 



128 True Success in Life. 

helpless as a child ; that convictions were nothing, 
and resolutions nothing, and desperate struggles 
nothing, but that all were swept away as by a 
mighty stream. There are thousands of such exam- 
ples. No bondage can easily be conceived more com- 
plete, more galling, more hopeless, than that which 
evil habit, long continued, is certain to impose. 

It only remains to say, that the force of habit 
has no necessary relation to evil, but may be made 
a powerful auxiliary to reason and conscience on 
the side of good. It is, as we have said, because 
we are naturally predisposed to evil indulgences 
that it is so very easy to fall into evil habits, 
and not because the law of habit does not hold 
equally in respect to the repeated doing of right 
things. Deny an evil appetite, or passion, the fifth, 
the tenth, the twentieth time, and you shall find 
the force of habit beginning to assert itself and 
to come to your assistance. Perform persistently 
any virtuous act, and you will soon be able to per- 
ceive the same result. A young man undertakes to 
apply himself to business. He finds the confine- 
ment and the duties irksome, and he is tempted to 
abandon his position ; but he courageously holds on, 
and it is not long before he perceives that he is 
borne forward by the cooperative power of habit 



The Law of Habit. 1 29 

with comparatively little difficulty. In the pursuit 
of knowledge, in the work of self-culture and self- 
control, in the practice of social virtues, in the per- 
formance of deeds of philanthropy and charity, in 
the fixing of the thoughts on invisible and sacred 
things, in the observance of the Sabbath, in the 
maintaining of a devout and religious spirit, the ob- 
servance of secret prayer and of the ordinances of 
public worship ; in all things, in short, that are in- 
volved in the attainment of the inward spirit and the 
outward manifestations of true goodness, the con- 
tinuance and confirmation of habit is found to 
bring a most important and ever-increasing aid. 
What once was irksome in the way of self-restraint, 
or painful in the way of putting forth of effort, is at 
last accomplished not only without discomfort, but 
very possibly with a positive delight. 

It is necessary, however, here to notice a very 
essential difference between the effect of habit, when 
it acts on the side of evil, and when it acts on the 
side of good. We have already seen that on the 
side of evil, it results at length in iron bondage, 
binding its victim, and holding him a wretched cap- 
tive. But on the side of good it has no tendency to 
bondage. It will never make any one a slave to 
virtue, to piety, to God. Do you ask why not ? 
9 



130 True Success in Life. 

The answer lies in the radical difference between 
the tendencies — the essential natures — of evil and 
good themselves. Evil appetites, affections and im- 
pulses, from their very nature, tend to enslave the 
soul ; and habit brings all its power to help them do 
their proper work. Reason, conscience, right and 
holy affections and impulses, tend to emancipate the 
soul and give it a high and blessed freedom ; and 
habit contributes all its power to help them do their 
proper work. The devil is in bondage ; the seraph 
is gloriously free, in the divine beauty, the immacu- 
late perfection of his goodness. There is no slave- 
ry, there can be none, in the realm of truly virtuous 
and holy souls. The more you advance in true vir- 
tue, in the goodness which God acknowledges as 
such, the more you will delight in goodness ; the 
more you will choose it ; the more you will live in it 
as the vital and most congenial element of your ex- 
istence ; and because your choice, your will, your 
affections, all the currents of your soul, in a word, 
flow in the same direction with your habits, there 
can be no collision, nothing to impair the highest 
conceivable freedom of the soul. The effect of right 
habit will only be to give you confirmation and sta- 
bility in goodness, and greater and greater strength 
to climb the arduous steeps of virtuous, of divine 



The Law of Habit. 131 

activity, to the unending years of your immortal life ! 
This is the law of the spirit of life, that maketh free 
from the law of sin and death. It affords the high- 
est encouragement to all who are striving to become 
truly and permanently good. 

It is plain, therefore, that the law of habit is 
something that demands the most serious considera- 
tion of those who are yet young. It is something 
the influence of which no mortal can escape. You 
who are now advancing towards maturity, are rap- 
idly forming habits- — habits of thought, feeling, 
taste — habits relating to your dress, your manners, 
your conversation, your tempers, your pleasures, 
your business, your studies, your morals, and your 
treatment of the great questions of religion. We 
have seen that the habits of youth are commonly 
not fixed beyond the possibility of change, but that 
silently and unconsciously they are daily gathering 
force ; that evil habits gain force with great rapidity 
till they establish complete dominion, a wretched, 
hopeless slavery ; while on the other hand, good 
habits are the efficient helpers of all virtue, and the 
ministers of moral strength and freedom to the soul. 

This, then, is the question urged on each of you, 
young men and women. Of what sort are the habits 
that I am daily forming? Are thev such habits as 



132 True Success in Life. 

are required in order to the right forming of my 
character ; to the attainment of the power, the 
beauty, the goodness, and the freedom which are the 
true glory of my being? Or are they such that at 
no distant period they will inevitably fix the type of 
my character for evil, and deliver me over in the 
end to a debasing and fatal bondage ? This ques- 
tion each one of you should thoughtfully and anx- 
iously decide — decide before this period of possible 
change is past. Believe it, if you wait, it will be 
past before you are aware. As I look back at this 
moment on the companions of my youth, a fair array 
of faces arrange themselves before the eye of mem- 
ory, beaming with cheerfulness and hope in antici- 
pation of the future. I remember how we talked, 
and imagined, and planned together about the scenes 
of coming years. Alas ! a pang goes through my 
heart as the recollection rises that, for a large pro- 
portion of these, life has brought utter failure. The 
force of pernicious habits, of one sort or another, 
destroyed their cherished hopes ; and even worse, in 
many cases bound them, and held them, and drove 
them, years ago, to ruin ! Could I exhibit to you 
these pictures of my memory, I would hold them up 
to you as beacons, that looking on them you might 
see to what wrong habits lead with the resistless en- 



The Law of Habit. 133 

ergy of fate. At least while I speak to you of their 
sad histories, let me beg you to learn wisdom at the 
expense of those who have all too fully proved the 
destructive tendency even of evil habits that seemed 
comparatively trifling in themselves. The language 
of all experience is, let the Ethiopian change his 
skin and the leopard his spots ; then may they who 
have been accustomed to do evil, learn to do well. 

On the other hand, remember, that if with seri- 
ous care and pains you acquire those inward and 
outward habits which are connected with pure and 
well-directed and truly Christian lives, they will 
make the burdens of duty to grow lighter and lighter 
to the end of life ; and, harmonizing with the in- 
working grace of God and the holy aspirations of 
your souls, they will be to you an important element 
of steadfastness and of perfection, in the eternal 
future that lies on the other side of death. Oh, is 
not the thought inspiring, that you may now, every 
day you live, be doing that which will minister to 
the immortal strength with which you may climb 
forever the heights of holy happiness and glory 
which God has placed within your reach ! While 
you give no place to any evil habit, see to it that 
you so accustom yourselves to that which is pure 
and good in thought, in affection, in desires and 



134 True Success in Life. 

tastes, in word and deed, that to do the will of God 
shall be to you but as the spontaneous, prompt and 
most delightful impulse of your souls. May you 
find, in the grace of Jesus Christ, the aid you need 
in order to this great attainment ! 



THE DANGER OF INDULGENCE IN 
LITTLE SINS. 



"And Hazael said, But what! is thy servant a dog, that he 
should do this great thing ? And Elisha answered, The Lord hath 
showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria." — II Kings viii. 13. 



VII. 

THE DANGER OF INDULGENCE IN 
LITTLE SINS. 

HHE young servant of Benhadad, the Syrian 
-*- king, had already given way to an evil passion. 
A selfish and unscrupulous ambition had gained the 
mastery over him. This the divinely enlightened 
prophet knew. At this he plainly hinted in his reply 
to the question put to him. As if he had said, It is 
enough that you have already begun to covet your 
master's throne and power. You have admitted the 
spirit of evil to your heart. You have allowed your- 
self to swerve inwardly from rectitude. You have 
launched on the downward current of iniquity, and 
now you will find no place to stop. It will be easy 
to go on till there shall be no sin too great for you 
to revel in ; and though not a dog, you may with 
great facility become a devil. 

The result was even so. Falsehood, murder, 
usurpation of the throne, and a reign of wanton cru- 
elty followed in natural succession. The case af- 
fords a striking example and illustration of the close 



138 True Success i?i Life. 

connection which so commonly exists between small 
beginnings in sin and the extremes of abandonment 
and guilt. 

It is one of the most common, and at the same 
time one of the most fatal of delusions, to imagine 
that there is but little harm and little danger in a 
slight indulgence of evil passions — in yielding in a 
limited degree to the solicitations of the tempter — 
in allowing one's self to do what is recognized as 
wrong, but yet is not regarded as very greatly crimi- 
nal. Perhaps there is no delusion whatever of any 
serious moment into which young persons generally, 
and particularly young men, are so liable to fall as 
this. It is a notable exemplification of the deceit- 
fulness of sin. It is one of the most plausible, yet 
deadly cheats, by which the arch-deceiver lures on 
his blinded victims, till they are plunged into the 
darkest abysses of depravity and shame. Many a 
son of godly parents, of early promise, and even of 
good intentions and generally right habits, has 
blighted all his prospects, and gone down at length 
indeed to deep debasement, by weakly admitting the 
idea that he might safely venture a little way upon 
forbidden ground. As though it were safe to take 
a few steps down the slope of a slippery rock ! As 
though there were no danger in pushing out to a 



Indulgence in Little Sins, J 39 

short distance into the rapid stream that is bearing 
downward to the mighty cataract ! Ah, it is these 
first steps in sin that determine the type of charac- 
ter for profligacy and guilt ; and those who are will- 
ing to take these, although they may now shrink at 
the thought of advancing further — may even resent 
the bare suggestion — will be likely soon to find that 
they are driven on to the extremes of wickedness by 
an almost resistless power. I do not say that it will 
certainly be so in every case. Now and then one 
who has tampered in this way with temptation — who 
has deliberately ventured on what were esteemed 
comparatively slight departures from the line of vir- 
tuous conduct — may be recovered, almost as if by 
miracle. But the general rule will be as we have 
stated after all : that those who enter the downward 
path of deliberate sin, intending not to venture far, 
will easily and often rapidly, go on to lengths in evil 
from which they once would have started back with 
horror and which end in hopeless ruin. This is 
what must be expected. 

For let it be considered that the restraints im- 
posed by Christian education and early virtuous hab- 
it, are certain to be weakened by being broken over. 
There is hardly anything in the world that has more 
of moral beauty than a well-regulated Christian 



140 True Success in Life. 

home. Its very atmosphere seems to inspire health- 
fulness and purity of heart. The influence of early 
religious association and instruction, in holding back 
from sinful indulgences, in leading even those who 
have not received as yet the grace that inwardly* 
renews to form habits of outward amiableness and 
virtue, is incalculably great. In a truly Christian 
family, where God is daily acknowledged, and the 
lessons of his holy word are made familiar, the 
household order and the domestic affections are felt 
to have a certain sacredness about them. They are 
all the while speaking to the heart. Impressions 
are thus made in childhood in relation to the hate- 
fulness of vice and the miseries with which it stands 
connected, to the loveliness of virtue and the re- 
wards by which it is attended, that tend power- 
fully to hold in check the natural propensities to 
evil. Under these favorable circumstances, we see 
many young persons, whole families even, who, 
through the years of childhood and earlier youth, 
are kept back from manifest sins, and are unexcep- 
tionably pure and lovely in their deportment. They 
have a certain refinement and delicacy of feeling. 
They are conscious of strong repugnance to gross 
vice, and shudder at the thought of ever themselves 
committing it. When such persons see the openly 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 141 

corrupt, lost to the sense of duty, and even of 
shame, and wallowing in their debasement, their 
sense of propriety, at least, is shocked, and they feel 
that there is something deeply painful in the spec- 
tacle. The practical influence of such a state of 
mind must be highly favorable to virtuous conduct. 
It must form — it does form — a strong safeguard 
against open and bold transgression. Have not 
some of you been distinctly conscious of the protect- 
ing power of these educational influences and 
tastes ? Have you not felt them sometimes as if 
girding you around and holding you apart from 
what is flagrantly corrupt. Beyond a doubt you 
have ; and if you are yet safe, perhaps it is to this 
cause, in large measure that you owe it. 

But the hour of temptation comes. A young 
man whose Christian education has taught him to 
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, accord- 
ing to God's command, is tempted to profane it, for 
the first time, by what appears to him some small 
infringement of its sacredness, by neglecting the 
house of God, by reading unsuited to the day, by 
walking, riding, or sailing, for mere pleasure, for ex- 
ample. There is a struggle. It is hard to resist 
the impulse which urges to sanctify the day by 
observing it religiously ; the impression of obliga- 



142 Trite Success in Life, 

tion to this which Christian instruction has pro- 
duced and habit has confirmed. He hesitates. He 
casts about for an apology. He resolves within 
himself that if he yields — he has not decided to 
yield yet— but if he does, it shall be only for this 
once. At last he overcomes his scruples. He 
casts aside the check which hitherto had held him 
and commits the trifling sin, as he regards it. 

What then has happened ? The charm is broken. 
A breach is made, a fatal breach, in that entrench- 
ment to which wholesome counsels and the habit of 
right-doing had raised around him. He can never 
get back what he has lost. He cannot feel as he did 
before. It no longer seems to him impossible to go 
beyond the well known lines of duty. The purity 
and beauty of the Sabbath to his thought is lost. 
Precisely this is the point of departure from virtue 
in a multitude of cases. 

Or we may choose another instance. A young 
man, accustomed to the healthful excitements and 
pure companionships of home and of virtuous friend- 
ship, and who has been content with these, is pass- 
ing along the street at night. He sees the light 
streaming from the convivial club-room. He hears 
the voices of jovial fellows who are there. The bil- 
liards, the cards, the wine-cup, the jest, the song, 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 143 

the story, the social merriment, all rise before him 
as if in a vision of offered and easily attained de- 
lights. Even the mystery of the place, unknown as 
yet to him, enhances the fascination. He pauses. 
Shall he enter ? It is not, he admits to himself ; 
just the kind of company to which he has been 
used. The pleasures promised are not precisely 
the wholesome and elevating ones to which he has 
hitherto resorted. He cannot resist the feeling that 
he would lower himself a little in his own esteem ; 
that he will bring himself into contact with things 
that tend to coarseness and defilement. But then — ■ 
just to look into such a place for once, or even to 
visit it occasionally, will be no great matter. He 
will certainly have very little to do with places 
of this nature. So he at length steps over the outer 
boundary of the circle within which he has hitherto 
lived happily and safely. It is, he persuades him- 
self, a little thing that he has done. 

A little thing ? Alas ! no : he has done a mis- 
chief that is likely to prove fatal. The resolution 
may remain not to go further in transgression, and 
not often to transgress at all. But there has gone 
from the mind, and gone forever, a certain safe- 
guard, a restraining force, the salutary product of 
sound instruction and good influence, which steadily 



144 True Success in Life. 

withheld from evil. The father's power, the moth- 
er's power, the sister's power, the power of all that 
is most virtuous and good, over the heart and will 
of that young man, is broken, or at the least, is very 
materially impaired. He will be likely soon, not 
only to dishonor the Sabbath, with little or no hesi- 
tation, and without check to frequent the places of 
vulgar dissipation, but also to overcome entirely the 
repugnance to gross vice, which early training and 
right habit had created. 

But more than this. While indulgence in what 
are regarded as comparatively little sins impairs and 
commonly at last destroys the influence of Christian 
education and good habits, it by no means stops with 
this. It works yet deeper mischief— mischief to 
that which is highest in the soul, its moral nature. 
It rapidly diminishes, we add, tenderness of con- 
science and susceptibility to any good impression. 

Deep as the corruption of our nature is, the 
sense of moral obligation — the attribute of con- 
science — still remains. In most minds, which are 
under the influence of Christian truth, the conscience 
is sensitive in early years. It remonstrates strongly 
against the doing of what is recognized as wrong, 
and makes the trangressor suffer, in view of his of- 
fence, a deep and bitter compunction. That it does 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 145 

so is not an indication of any inherent goodness. It 
does not involve a choice and a love of goodness. It 
is only a voice out of the higher nature of the soul 
declaring that goodness ought to be loved and 
chosen. It is the spontaneous, involuntary action 
of a constitutional faculty. God who made man in 
his own image, has given the soul this inward moral 
law, that it shall at once approve the right and con- 
demn the wrong, when these can be distinguished. 

But however tender the conscience of any indi- 
vidual may be, however nicely it may perform its 
proper function before it has been abused, the fact 
is found to be that it loses rapidly its quick suscep- 
tibility when its voice of authority is disobeyed. It 
is a common thing to see those who were once made 
wretched by the least neglect of duty, or the con- 
mission of the slightest fault, come at length to 
trample without remorse on the highest obligations 
and to live in the habitual commission of great 
crimes with utter recklessness. They have arrived 
at this by violating conscience at first in things that 
seemed so trifling that the wrong occasioned per- 
haps only a transient twinge — a pain that was soon 
forgotten. The repetition of such acts, however, re- 
sulted in a general hardening- of the heart, a dead- 
ening of all the moral sensibilities against the im- 
10 



146 True Success in Life. 

pression of serious truths and wholesome influences, 
from whatever quarter they may come. 

In this way it is easy to see that the mind may 
be prepared, by the commission of what seem trivial 
sins, to advance to the hardihood required for the 
basest crimes. If you would have examples, they 
unhappily abound. Yes, indeed ; it is by no means 
improbable that some even of yourselves are affect- 
ing illustrations of what has just been said. Let me 
ask you — for I wish to do you good — are there not 
some of you possibly who now indulge in all sorts of 
vices with little or no compunction, who once felt 
tenderly the least departure from the right ? Are 
there not, for instance, some who now allow them- 
selves habitually in profane, or otherwise indecent 
language, with utter thoughtlessness, whose con- 
sciences stung them like a scorpion when they ut- 
tered the first oath, or let fall the first expression 
that soiled the lips of purity ? Are there not some who 
now, with an indifferent recklessness of mind, prac- 
tice great wickedness in secret ; who readily consort 
with bad associates ; who enter boldly the haunts of 
debasing vice; who set at nought the counsels and 
prayers, and well nigh break the hearts of kind and 
faithful parents — and all this with very faint remon- 
strances within— whose first steps towards these de- 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 147 

grading courses were attended with an almost intol- 
erable self-reproach and the blush of conscious guilt ? 
God grant there be none such ! Yet strange 
would it be if there are not some. All too often 
dops it happen, that even the sons of godly fathers 
and praying mothers, those whose consciences were 
both tender and enlightened in their childhood, are 
found exemplifying in their wicked lives the fatal 
consequences of the commission of what seemed 
trivial sins, in so destroying tenderness of conscience 
that not even the grossest immoralities can rouse it 
from its torpor. It is so that many a young man 
who would once have said — Is thy servant a dog, 
that he should do this great thing ? — is seen de- 
scending, step by step, till without resistance from his 
better nature, he riots in the lowest depths of guilt. 
That which was as the voice of God within him has 
been silenced. 

Still further, all experience has shown that the 
strength of evil propensities and appetites is greatly 
increased even by small indulgences. Both body 
and mind in our complex being are exquisite and 
wonderful in their constitutional structure. They 
are endowed with appetites and instincts which are 
innocent and useful within their proper limits. 
When they receive their lawful gratification, they are 



148 True Success in Life. 

satisfied, and the result is a healthful pleasure. But 
these appetites and instincts disordered and per- 
verted become wicked and hurtful lusts. They are 
then irregular in their action and inordinate in their 
demands. Instead of being satisfied with the mod- 
erate enjoyment of their objects, they are constantly 
craving, and craving all the more, the more they are 
indulged ; for each improper indulgence increases, of 
course, the derangement and perversion, and so ren- 
ders each successive demand more exorbitant than 
the last by a law of rapid progression. Made to 
serve reason and the sense of duty, the passions al- 
lowed to rule a little, usurp authority and become 
the most intolerable of tyrants. 

Is it not so ? Illustrations without number will 
suggest themselves to you at once. Take a case, 
which sad to say is a very common one. There is a 
child reared in the home of sobriety and temper- 
ance. His appetites have never been deranged by 
artificial stimulants. He has eaten and drunk at 
the healthful table of frugality, and with this he has 
been content. Look at him. How beautiful in his 
childish purity ! There is a joyous lustre in his eye 
and a ruddy glow upon his cheek. Your thoughts 
run forward to a fine development and a noble fu- 
ture. But he becomes a young man. He goes, 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 149 

perhaps, from the country to the city ; or at any rate, 
he comes under the influence of temptation to self- 
indulgence. He begins to feel the attraction of 
cheerful fellowship. He yields, little by little, to the 
solicitations of luxury. He loses his natural and 
simple tastes — so gradually, it may be, that he 
hardly himself takes note of it for a time. But he is 
drawn into the society of those whose habits have 
become more or less corrupt. Next comes untimely 
and excessive feastings which help on the sensual- 
izing process. Soon he begins to look with pleasure 
on the wine when it is red, and giveth its color 
aright. He enjoys the social glass. It is, he thinks, 
quite a trifling matter, of not much consequence 
either one way or the other. This, however, it soon 
appears, is a terrible delusion. A perverted appe- 
tite is soon established, and he begins to feel its 
urgency. He takes a momentary alarm, perhaps, 
and resolves that he will stop indulging it ; but he 
does not stop. Instead of this he is borne on from 
one degree of indulgence to another, until the mor- 
bid appetite has overmastered him. He becomes an 
habitual quaffer of the deadly cup— a drunkard 
soon — a wretched outcast in the end. He dies in 
shame and goes to a dark eternity, because at first 
he yielded to appetite a little and so quickened it 



150 True Success in Life. 

into a resistless and deadly strength. It was by the 
little transgression that he fell ; and from a fair and 
noble child and youth became a demon. 

Another, equally promising in childhood and 
early youth, goes down to the deepest ruin by a 
somewhat different path. There are forms of sen- 
suality of which, as an Apostle says, it is a shame 
to speak ; and yet to speak of them becomes a stern 
necessity. But I will place before you the picture 
which the Bible itself presents, in the seventh chap- 
ter of the book of Proverbs, and even of this I will 
quote to you but a part. 

" Say unto wisdom, thou art my sister ; and call 
understanding thy kinswoman, that they may keep 
thee from the strange woman which flattereth with 
her words. For at the window of my house, I 
looked through my casement, and beheld among 
the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a 
young man devoid of understanding, passing through 
the street near her corner ; and he went the way to 
her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the 
black and dark night. And behold there met him 
a woman with the attire of an harlot and subtle of 
heart. With much fair speech she caused him to 
yield ; with the flattering of her lips she forced him. 
He goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 151 

the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the 
stocks, till a dart strike through his liver ; as a bird 
hasteth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for 
his life. Her house is the way to hell, going down 
to the chambers of death." 

For a descent to such an abyss of infamy there 
must be a preparatory process. It is by slight 
offenses against the laws of purity, by unchaste 
imaginations, thoughts and words, at first, and then 
by indulging in the reading of poisonous books, or 
in corrupting conversation with those already profli- 
gate, that ail the refinement and sanctity of virtuous 
feeling is destroyed ; that once modest and pure- 
minded young persons become thoroughly defiled 
and sink to the lowest vileness. Remember, 
remember the fearful peril of tampering in the least 
degree with anything that tends to begin the pro- 
cess of polluting the fountains of right feeling in the 
heart. 

The same law holds in respect to the propensi- 
ties and appetites which belong more especially to 
the mind. Envy, pride, covetousness, ambition, 
malice, revenge — all the evil tempers to which our 
depraved natures are so prone, if yielded to a little 
when they rise within the heart, are soon nurtured 
into an activity and power that bears down all before it 



152 True Success in Life. 

There is no vice so hideous, no shade of human 
character so hateful, that the most correct and ami- 
able young person may not soon exemplify it, if he 
once deliberately consents to concede a little to 
sinful inclination. Wrong appetites, encouraged 
but a little, become restless and clamor to be grati- 
fied. Evil passions indulged a little, become speed- 
ily as uncontrollable as the tiger that has tasted 
blood. Divine help is needed to subdue them. 

But the subject has yet another aspect. It is 
also to be added that, by the necessity of things, 
sins are usually so linked together, that one draws 
others after it ; and the less so renders inevitable 
the commission of the greater. It is not material 
what the nature of this connection is. It may be 
different in different cases. But the fact that in 
some way one criminal act leads on to others, by a 
moral necessity, is every day to be observed. 
Hazael's course itself illustrates this. When he 
had falsely told the king that the prophet had said 
he should recover, he could not stop there without 
detection. He must now assassinate Benhadad. 
When he had done this, he could not stop, but must 
seize on his throne and power. Then when he had 
seized on these he was obliged to fight in order to 
maintain the position he had taken ; and so he was 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 153 

led to perpetrate the very cruelties which seemed to 
him so shocking when predicted by the prophet. 

So in cases without end. A young man indulges 
in some expensive pleasure ; that is the first sin. 
Then he must have more money than he is able to 
command, and so he robs his parents. Next he 
filches from his employer. Then he must lie to 
conceal his thefts. Now perhaps his only remain- 
ing resource is forgery, or some other extensive 
scheme of fraud ; till at last, when the inexorable 
power under which he placed himself by what he 
thought his little sin at first, has wound coil after 
coil around him, he feels himself bound hand and 
foot, beyond the power of extrication, and the train 
of events ends in exposure, shame and ruin. This 
necessitated progression in guilt may be considered 
as nearly, or quite, a constant law of crime ; a law 
which makes the case of the transgressor like that 
of the loosened rock upon the mountain side, which 
in the first place slips a little ; then it begins, but 
almost imperceptibly, to fall ; then, gathering speed 
at every moment, it plunges headlong to the bottom. 
Oh, how deplorable the downfall to which young men 
of fairest hope and promise are constantly dragged 
by this concatenation, this linking in of one sin with 
another ! They dream of no such thing when they 



154 True Success in Life. 

take the initiative, the first slight step aside from 
rectitude. They think that no serious consequences 
can follow so small a fault as theirs. But, ah ! too 
late, they feel the drawing of a force that drags 
them to perdition. They perish without remedy as 
birds taken in an evil net. 

It only remains to say finally that what we take 
to be little sins, are very likely to be in fact, and of 
course in the judgment of God, sins of a flagrant 
character, involving a high degree of guilt. Our 
mode of estimating sins is often wholly wrong. In 
what way are we to rate the amount of guilt involved 
in any particular wrong act ? Not certainly by the 
smallness of the act itself. Not by the time occu- 
pied in its commission. It is a very small act to 
write a name ; but that is all that is required for the 
most stupendous forgery. A single word, a wink of 
the eye, a motion of the head or hand, may convey 
the most pernicious falsehood. A brief sentence 
may embody the foulest slander. It was a small 
deed and soon committed that blighted Eden and 

" Brought death into the world and all our woe ! " 

The greatness of any transgression must be meas- 
ured, in part, by the sacredness of the obligation 
violated, and in part by the extent of the evil con- 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 155 

sequences with which it stands connected. Can the 
apparently slight departures from the right, then, 
which are indulged in by those who have had abun- 
dant good instruction and example ; who know 7 the 
beauty and the priceless worth of virtue ; who per- 
fectly understand that any allowance of evil by them 
will plant a thorn in the loving heart of a father, 
mother, or sister, will violate good habit, a good con- 
science and the beneficent command of God, can 
these be little sins ? Can those be little sins, which 
as we have seen may involve as their final result the 
ruin, both for this world and the next, not only of 
those who commit them, but that of many others 
also, together with the breaking of the hearts that 
loved them ? It is a common remark that a man's 
character and fortunes for this world are often seen 
to turn on the slightest circumstance ; and the same 
holds good in respect to the world to come. If then 
your own destiny, as an immortal creature, or the 
destiny of another, hangs quivering in the balance 
so that a single grain of sand may turn the scale, is 
the casting of that grain of sand that shall turn it 
wrong, a little sin ? Oh, no. Believe it, when at 
the bar of God's eternal judgment, each action of 
mortals shall be fairly weighed and shown exactly 
as it is — with all its aggravations of light, knowledge 



156 True Success in Life. 

and opportunity misused, and with all its remote, as 
well as immediate evil consequences — it will be 
found that a vast proportion of what were taken for 
little sins were really crimes of enormous magnitude 
and must consign to the severest punishment. You 
cannot commit what seems one of the least sins 
without more than a probability that it will turn out 
to have been one of the greatest in the end. In 
this view, as well as those before presented, the 
danger of yielding to evil a little is very great. 

But I need not pursue the subject further. Let 
me ask you, however, in view of what has been al- 
ready said, Is it not of the greatest moment that 
every young person, and especially that every young 
man, should be thoroughly awake to the fact that he 
daily lives in imminent danger, although he may not 
see it. I address the question to young men more 
particularly, because they are peculiarly exposed to 
the evil influences of this corrupting world, and be- 
cause more is depending on them than on any other 
class. The fathers will soon pass from the stage of 
life. They will sleep in silent dust. You who are 
now young men will be called on to fill the posts of 
duty, of influence, of honor, which they are holding 
now. The welfare of society and the interests of man- 
kind will be intrusted to your hands. If you are 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 157 

men of intelligence, men of pure characters, of in- 
flexible principle, and serious piety, you will scatter 
blessings all around you, and the world will rejoice 
in you as benefactors to your kind. But if the re- 
verse is true ; if you are mere lovers of pleasure ; if 
you are reckless, corrupt, indifferent to the good of 
others, and without high purposes and aims ; your 
influence will blast, like mildew, whatever is virtuous 
and lovely, and the curses of many will come upon 
your heads. 

With all this heavy responsibility upon you, 
you are obliged to go forth into incessant contact 
with the seductive influences of sin ; and you are 
liable, as we have seen, by a few slight missteps, 
by turning aside but a little, in the first place, to 
sink to the lowest depths of vice ; to be lost to your- 
selves, to your friends, and to all that is pure and 
good. 

Here certainly is enough to rouse you to reflec- 
tion and to stimulate to the most unceasing vigilance. 
Remember, you can live only once. You can 
mould your characters but once. You cannot turn 
back the wheels of time and live over a wasted 
youth. You cannot wash out the record of sin and 
write anew the pages of your moral history. Oh ! 
let me ask you, are not your perils great and your 



I 58 True Success i?i Life. 

circumstances ^solemn, even confining your thoughts 
to the present world alone ? 

But then you have also to consider what God 
hath said to him who by early indulgences is pre- 
paring himself for the extremes of sin : " Rejoice, O 
young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer 
thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways 
of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes : but 
know thou that for all this God will bring thee into 
judgment ! " Ah ! that judgment to a young man 
who, by slight indulgences, has fallen to utter moral 
wreck. Who shall portray its scenes, or express its 
anguish ? Conceive, if you can, how you will feel, 
if by venturing the first steps, you are drawn into a 
' worldly, sensual life, when you shall come forth 
from the dark tomb at the voice of the archangel, 
amidst the terrors of dissolving worlds, to answer to 
your Judge for time and talents wasted, for years 
thrown away, and sins of all degrees committed ! 
Pause when you are tempted to yield a little to 
what is evil ; pause and reflect that to do it is to 
enter the path to eternal condemnation and despair ! 

But how shall we go safely, where dangers so 
great and fearful must be encountered every hour ? 

Fix it, I reply, as your unalterable purpose to 
make no concessions whatever to little sins. Have 



Indulgence in Little Sins. 159 

the firm principle, the unflinching manhood, to 
resist your companions if they tempt you, society 
and fashion if they tempt you, your own impulses 
when they would urge you to the wrong ; and keep 
yourselves entirely aloof from the path of the de- 
stroyer. If any of you are conscious that you are 
already within the edge of the dreadful whirl- 
pool which steadily draws in the victim until 
he is engulfed in deep perdition, arouse your- 
selves at once, and make haste to set your feet 
in the way of life and peace. In every sinful 
heart there are the elements of death. It is the 
nature of sin to perpetuate itself. Therefore you 
need a friend, a helper, a guide ; through all the 
mazes of your course. Just here the gospel meets 
you. God in Christ offers you his love, his grace, 
his leading hand, if you will but accept them. 
Learn the great lesson of self-denial at the cross of 
the world's Redeemer. Look up to the loving 
Father in heaven, who desires to bless and keep 
you ; and, committing yourselves to Him, let it be 
daily your first desire to become truly the sons of 
God. Then that Father's hand will lead you to full 
fountains, and his grace will enable you to make 
life a glorious thing. Then you shall find a friend 
and brother in Christ, shall have the sympathy of 



160 True Success in Life. 

all the pure and good, and an eternal home in the 
city of our God above, into which shall enter noth- 
ing that defileth ! God himself help you to settle 
in your hearts the irrevocable purpose to keep your- 
selves with perpetual vigilance from even the slight- 
est departures from the holy path which all the 
really great and good of earth have trod- — -the path 
of genuine virtue and of divine religion ! 



THE CHOICE OF A LIFE-WORK. 



" I have glorified Thee on the earth ; I have finished the work 
Thou gavest me to do." — John xvn. 



VIII. 

THE CHOICE OF A LIFE-WORK. 

T T was natural that the world's Redeemer should 
-*- glance backward over his life with men as the end 
drew nigh, and survey it, as a whole, in the light of 
his high commission. He did this only to feel pro- 
foundly conscious that as regards the fulfilment of 
that commission he had literally failed in nothing. 
To the last iota, He had performed all that the will 
of the Father had appointed. It was, therefore, 
with absolute truth, and must certainly have been 
with a divine satisfaction, that He was able at the 
close to say, I have glorified Thee on the earth ; I 
have finished the work which Thou gavest me to 
do. This without the least qualification, either ex- 
pressed or implied. It is a perfect example of a life 
well lived that his words suggest. 

In his entire character and person, Jesus, the 
Son of Mary was, we know, immeasurably above 
our level. But in the fact that as a man He had a 
specific work on earth assigned him, He was by 



164 True Success in Life. 

no means singular. It is the common lot of mor- 
tals that every human being to whom is allowed a 
life should have appointed him, in the purpose and 
plan of God, a definite work to be accomplished. 
To me, to you, to each as if he stood alone, is such 
a work assigned. Not even the humblest individ- 
ual is thrown adrift on the sea of chance. Not one 
is there before whom eternal wisdom and love have 
not placed a task possible to him and worthy of his 
powers, in the achievement of which the true honor 
and blessedness of his being should be realized. 
What Christ did perfectly we indeed shall only 
approximate at best. But it is a grand advantage, 
surely, that He has set before us the true ideal 
towards the realization of which we are evermore to 
press. The value of every life must at last be 
measured by what it has achieved. That life which 
has not fulfilled its end must be accounted a failure, 
however brilliant or imposing it may have seemed. 
His life alone can be reckoned a success who, when 
he is about to bid farewell to earth, is able with 
truth to say that the work given him personally to 
do has been recognized, has been intelligently 
undertaken, and in some good measure actually 
performed. 

What then is the life-work that God has appoint- 



The Choice of a Life-WorL 165 

ed me ? To which of the many lawful and honora- 
ble pursuits that are open to me ought I to devote 
my powers ? These are the grandest of all questions 
to those on whom the scenes of active life are open- 
ing. Of those whom I now address there are prob- 
ably but few who have not again and again proposed 
them to themselves, in those quiet hours in which 
their best thoughts have been awakened. Is it not 
so ? The uncertainty of the future, covered with 
thick shadows, into which you are advancing, does 
it not at times oppress you and make you feel the 
necessity of having your course of effort definitely 
settled ? Would it not make you immeasurably 
calmer, stronger, and more happy to have your 
minds at rest as to the use you ought to make of 
your talents and your knowledge ? With a clear 
perception of what should be the main business of 
your life and a fixed and earnest purpose to shape 
your course accordingly, you would find it compara- 
tively easy beyond a doubt to advance, with manly 
courage and a rational enthusiasm, into the great 
battle-field that lies before you. 

How then shall the matter be determined ? 
What things are to be taken into the account, in 
order that one may reach a right decision ? 

First of all one's own constitutional adaptations 



1 66 Trice Success in Life. 

will of course form an important element of judg- 
ment. Each human being, if he attends to his own 
peculiarities, finds himself to differ widely in many re- 
spects from others. With the same constitutional 
elements in all, the diversity in the natural strength 
and the relative adjustment of the several faculties 
is very great and obvious. One is physically robust, 
another is delicately organized. One is phlegmatic 
in his temperament, another sanguine. One is dis- 
tinguished for understanding, deductive power, prac- 
tical sagacity, talent ; another has imagination, ideal- 
ity, intuition, genius. As it would be absurd to yoke 
the tiger to the plough, or to set the raven to sing 
like the nightingale, or to choose a poplar for the 
mainmast of a ship, so it is folly to suppose that men 
can be brought to fill successfully places for which 
they lack naturally the requisite endowments. 

Admit that education and discipline may modify 
predominant constitutional traits and in some degree 
develop what is wanting. Still, common sense at 
once decides, that the true wisdom in education and 
self-training is to work with due regard to what God 
has done in the bestowment of his gifts on each in- 
dividual soul. Each should be taught to do, each is 
to set himself to do, if he would fulfil his end in 
living, what, on the whole, among the things that 



The Choice of a Life-Work, 167 

are good and useful, he individually is most capable 
of doing well. He who carefully studies and intelli- 
gently comprehends his own adaptations ; who has 
some clear discernment, not only of what he has in 
common with others, but also what he has which 
they have not in anything like the same degree ; 
will so be the more likely to recognize and to 
achieve the task for which specifically he was sent 
into the world. He can hardly fall into the disas- 
trous mistake, unhappily so frequent, of applying 
himself to some pursuit, or line of life, for which by 
nature he is totally unfitted. All this is so obvious, 
that to state it simply is enough. You cannot fail, 
when your thoughts turn anxiously to inquire about 
your future course, to gain some light from an 
honest and careful study of yourselves. God's will 
about your life-work is, most probably, at least inti- 
mated in the very structure of your being. 

Still further light in regard to one's true work in 
life may often be obtained by giving due attention 
to what seem to be spontaneous and instinctive im- 
pulses towards particular pursuits. Whether these 
impulses are mere instincts, or are direct intima- 
tions of God's will to the soul, we need not stay to 
ask. The consciousness of most of us can testify to 
the fact, that in many hearts there are found, in 



1 68 1 rite Success in Life. 

early years, certain vague and inexplicable, yet very 
positive aspirations toward some specific attainment 
— habitual yearnings to reach some form of knowl- 
edge, of intellectual culture, of art, of salutary power 
and influence, of which the mind conceives. Some 
of us felt them long since, when the morning dew 
was on our leaf. Some of us doubtless almost daily 
feel them now. They are easily excited in our 
breasts. They continually return to us in the hours 
of silent thought. They become, at times perhaps, 
intense, and so haunt the mind as to make it rest- 
less and unhappy. The circumstances of one who 
feels them may be such as to make it seem alto- 
gether chimerical for him to admit the possibility 
of ever realizing the fancies that float before his 
thought ; and yet they will not be dismissed. In re- 
gard to how many of the men whose names are the 
great names of history, have we the record, that 

— " The child was father of the man," 

in the sense that childhood, or early youth, had 
foreshadowed in it by impulses, revealed or unre- 
vealed to others at the time, the future high career 
which Providence designed. It would be easy to 
cite examples. They will readily occur to you. 

If then, whether indirectly by inborn instincts, 



The Clio ice of a Life-Work. 169 

or immediately by some process of spiritual sugges- 
tion, a divine secret is often whispered in the heart 
even of the child — an intimation of the will of God 
as to the work it would accomplish — it is certainly 
the part of wisdom in one who is deciding on his 
course, to give due heed to the inward admonition. 
Let it here be said, however, to guard against mis- 
take, that it is the furthest from our purpose to en- 
courage any person to determine his plan of living, 
or even to take any important step in relation to it, 
under the influence of mere caprice, of some mo- 
mentary fancy, or excited inclination. Nothing can 
be less reliable than sudden impressions and tran- 
sient wishes, the offspring of romantic views. 

The inward impulses to which we have referred 
are wholly different from these and may easily be 
distinguished from them. Those motions in the 
soul that are worthy to be heeded, are deep and ha- 
bitual currents of thought and feeling. They come 
not in the moments of excitement or when a kindled 
imagination is creating gorgeous visions of the fu- 
ture. They are felt most sensibly when the soul is 
most sober and self-balanced, in the stillness and 
the calm, w r hen because left most entirely to itself 
its action is most spontaneous and healthful. They 
are not mere inclinations, awakened by things with- 



170 True Success in Life. 

out that promise pleasure ; but inward urgings rath- 
er, impelling toward things that seem most worthy 
to be sought. They are even sometimes imperative 
voices of the soul, that cause one to say within him- 
self — -I ought to attain this ; I ought to do that ; I 
must advance in a certain direction, even though it 
be through sacrifices, or I shall be untrue to myself. 
An unappeasable longing to accomplish some- 
thing great and worthy, a consciousness of possess- 
ing peculiar powers and a commanding sense of ob- 
ligation, may, separately or all combined, be at the 
bottom of these urgings. We are wont rightly to 
call them the suggestions of our better nature. It 
is not safe to take these as our sole guide. But it 
is certainly unsafe to disregard them, to choose a 
course of life against which there is a profound, even 
if not energetic protest in our hearts. Many, when 
they have felt the pangs of failure, have said with 
bitter self-reproach — Oh, that I had heeded more 
those voices within my soul in early years, that so 
often seemed to call me to another path than that I 
actually chose ! It is most reasonable to believe, 
that what God has marked out for one as his appro- 
priate work, may at least be indicated by a con- 
straining inward pressure, a predominant current of 
the soul in the right direction. He who himself 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 171 

constructed our mysterious being, can touch at 
pleasure all its secret springs. He can give it im- 
pulse as he will. 

Yet further, by a careful watching of opportuni- 
ties, that we may see which of them all Providence 
presents specifically to us, each individual may be 
greatly aided in deciding what the work of his life 
should be. If in the plan of God a particular course 
of life is assigned to each human being, it is rational 
to expect that his all-embracing Providence, without 
which not a sparrow falleth, will more or less dis- 
tinctly indicate that course in every case. I cannot 
comprehend the vast providential system in which 
all things are included so as to find my own place 
by discovering my precise relation to the whole. I 
may, however, understand my own position as re- 
lated to things immediately around me. With some 
comprehension of my own powers, I may see when 
an opportunity to use them to the best advantage is 
placed as if in my very path. I can feel that a di- 
rect appeal is made to me, when something impor- 
tant to be done that I am, or may be, qualified to do 
is, by the force of circumstances, directly pressed on 
my attention. History indeed is full of instances in 
which opportunity, unexpectedly presented, has 
awakened the consciousness of power and developed 



172 Trite Slice ess in Life. 

it to a degree never dreamed of as possible till then. 
The demand for scholars, artists, poets, orators, 
statesmen, reformers, preachers, heroes, has often 
called them suddenly forth, to the surprise of many 
and not least of the distinguished individuals them- 
selves. It has even been said that opportunities 
make great men. It is nearer the truth to say that 
they reveal them. 

No wise person, then, will settle his plan of life 
without attentively considering the comparative value 
of the opportunities which lie about him and asking 
which of them God has intended for himself. It is 
specially necessary among ourselves to do this. The 
state of society in many of the older countries, we 
know, is such, that one is almost compelled to tread 
very nearly in the footstep of his fathers. Few 
avenues to other conditions of life are open to him. 
It is widely different here. While the chief objects 
of human desire are within the range of possible at- 
tainment, all alike are at liberty to reach them if 
they can. The great difficulty is, indeed, with us, 
that at the starting point of life, one is bewildered, 
crazed well nigh, with opportunities that seem invit- 
ing. Never before since the world was made did 
such fields call for men to till them ; such mines en- 
treat to be opened to the day ; such marts of trade 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 173 

invite to their easy gains ; such walks of literature 
and science woo all who will to tread them ; such 
never resting presses challenge pens to daily use ; 
such spheres of professional activity offer without 
limit their honors and rewards ; such halls of legisla- 
tion summon to the high debates of statesmanship ; 
and finally, such pulpits present the highest of all 
positions of abiding influence and power with which 
to bless the world. All these are pressing their ap- 
peals on every hand. Xot the lack but the multi- 
tude of opportunities now gives us trouble. 

It is the imperative duty, therefore, of every one 
who is entering life to discriminate with care. It is 
the part of folly, because so many courses are pos- 
sible to us, to decide without reflection, to take 
blindly the first that chance may offer. Which of 
all of these opportunities opens itself providentially 
to me ? This is the question. That tide, at flood, 
to which God has brought my feet just when my 
decision should be made, is probably the one that, 
promptly taken, will bear me on to a successful life. 
At least it is my wisdom to find out what God's 
wisdom indicates by means of the circumstances in 
which he places me. It is for each to let God lead 
him, and courageously and manfully to follow where 
he leads. If one does this, he will discover towards 



174 True Success in Life. 

what it is that the divine finger would direct him 
personally. He will perceive, at length, that the 
hand which has led him from childhood on thus far, 
has brought him face to face with some worthy and 
pressing opportunity, in availing himself of which he 
has found his God-appointed task- — the work which 
it has been given him to do. 

Why should it not be so, unless we will be 
atheists ? Why should I not expect that He who 
cares for the fowls of Heaven, and gives to the lily 
of the field its grace, will guide my thoughtfully 
inquiring spirit to the knowledge of his will in re- 
spect to so great matter as the ordering of my 
life ? That opportunity which he providentially 
places directly in my path and commends to my 
soberest conviction, I need not hesitate to accept in 
confidence and hope. Not to regard, not promptly 
to enter, the door that Providence manifestly opens 
for one's feet at the very turning point of life ; to 
miss it through heedlessness, or by yielding to mere 
inclination, is very likely to render life, as a whole, 
a humiliating failure. It is one of the saddest of all 
sights, to see men of fine powers achieving nothing 
worthy of themselves, struggling in vain, as if 
against wind and tide, and ending perhaps in hope- 
less wreck, because at the critical moment they 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 175 

were not prompt to recognize and seize the divinely 
offered opportunity. Take heed, O mortal, that 
thou seize eagerly thy hour, when God's own finger 
indicates it, on the dial-plate of time. 



THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 



" I have glorified Thee on the earth ; I have finished the work 
Thou gavest me to do." — John xvn. 



IX. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

TT may also materially assist one in comprehend- 
■*■ ing what should be his life-work, to consider the 
question in the light of the obvious principle that 
among the good and useful things that may be 
done, he is solemnly bound to choose what is in- 
trinsically the highest and the best within his reach. 
But few, comparatively, of those who stand at 
the threshold of active life have any just conception 
how momentous are its issues. How should they 
have ? They are without the wisdom w T hich experi- 
ence and reflection give ; and as they look out on 
the objects of pursuit between which they are to 
choose, their highest thought too often reaches only 
so far as this — that they are bound to turn their 
backs on such things as are positively evil, and to 
devote themselves to such as are admitted to be 
good. It hardly occurs to them that any other dis- 
tinction than this demands their notice. If they 
can resist the fascinations of vice ; if they can bring 



i8o True Success in Life. 

themselves to expend their time and strength on 
what is virtuous and honorable ; this, they are ready- 
to conclude, is all that can be asked. What more ? 
But no, it is not enough in deciding on what 
things one will expend the ardor of his heart and 
the vigor of his powers, that essentially bad things 
are rejected and that the things chosen are really 
good. There is yet another distinction to be made. 
Among things that ai e worthy, there is a vast range 
of degrees. The jewels in a casket may all be pre- 
cious ; but the diamond is better than the ruby. 
An ordinary waterfall may produce impressions that 
are salutary ; but the sight of Niagara conveys a 
richer benefit. The climbing of a common hill 
may enlarge one's conceptions of sublimity ; but, 
after all, it is a grander thing to ascend the Hima- 
laya. It is honorable to be the faithful laborer who 
has made the canvas, or has cut the block of mar- 
ble from the quarry ; but is it not a far nobler thing 
to be the Apelles, or the Phidias, who by a miracle 
of art can overspread the one with living beauty, 
and bring forth from the other a form of admirable 
grace that almost seems to breathe and to be suf- 
fused with thought and feeling ? It is a creditable 
service to prepare a spelling-book ; but is it not 
something higher to have written the Iliad, or the 



The Choice of a Life-Work^ 181 

Paradise Lost ? It is good to be able to tread the 
ordinary walks of educated, thoughtful men ; but it 
is something more exalted to have reached the level 
of Paschal, Butler and Edwards, of Bacon, New- 
ton and La Place. I need not pursue this line 
of illustration. Within the boundary that defines 
the domain of the virtuous and lawful, there are 
degrees of excellence among acquisitions to be 
made and things to be achieved, rising to the lofti- 
est Conceivable heights of intellectual and moral 
greatness and perfection. 

It is with this ascending scale before him, on 
which are marked the innumerable gradations of 
virtuous life and action, that each one must settle 
it with himself what he will attempt to reach. No 
one may forget that he will justly be held responsi- 
ble to God, not only for choosing and doing what is 
good, but more than this — for choosing and doing 
what is best ; the best that is possible with the pow- 
ers and opportunities which have been given him. 
Of course in deciding what is best, the entire con- 
stitution and destiny of man must be taken into the 
account. The intellectual is higher than that which 
is merely physical. The moral is higher than that 
which is intellectual only. That which is in its na- 
ture permanent — which stands related to the eter- 



I &2 True Success in Life. 

nal future of man's being- — is higher than that which 
is essentially transient, not reaching beyond this life. 
These are the general principles. 

It is easy to apply them. Thou art bound, Oh, 
thou that art advancing unto life, to devote thyself 
to what is best and highest, as this shall be deter- 
mined in the clear apprehension of what are the 
noblest attributes of thy being, and especially of 
the great fact that immortality awaits thee. Thou 
art bound to turn with resolute purpose even from the 
good, whenever and wherever the better is at hand. 

We will only add, in this connection, that the 
most essential thing of all to the right understand- 
ing of one's life-work, is a supreme desire and pur- 
pose of glorifying God in living. I have glorified 
Thee on the earth, said Christ. This had been the 
one thing for which He lived. It was because of 
this that He was able at the end to say, I have fin- 
ished the work Thou gavest me to do. 

The supreme aim proposed to one's self in liv- 
ing, will, of course, affect all the details of life. It 
will influence the judgment in estimating the value 
of the different pursuits and different lines of con- 
duct. Let a man make the fine gold his trust and 
the accumulation of it his chief end, and he will be 
sure to measure everything by the relation in which 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 183 

it stands to this. Let the distinction resulting from 
eminence in learning, in influence, in power, in 
any of the things which men most covet, be the 
highest object of desire, and the same thing will be 
true. So if one's heart is supremely bent on glorify- 
ing God, he will estimate everything and will deter- 
mine all his efforts, in the light of this great pur- 
pose. In so far as God becomes the centre of the 
thoughts and feelings of the soul, all things natu- 
rally arrange themselves around him in their proper 
places ; just as about the sun the planets keep their 
balance and move in their appointed paths. Then 
too, as in the light of that great luminary, it is easy 
to distinguish between objects that are beautiful and 
those that are deformed ; so, in the light of God's 
perfection, it will be easy to distinguish between 
what in action is morally excellent and noble, and 
what is essentially unworthy and debasing. A 
heart fixed on God will be quick to discern between 
the worthless and the true, or the less and the 
greater good. There is no regulative force like this. 
Consider, for a moment, what we mean when we 
speak of glorifying God. If I live and act as God 
made me to live and act, I shall perfectly exhibit to 
all who see me his ideal in my creation. I shall il- 
lustrate, before their admiring eves, his wisdom and 



184 True Success in Life. 

goodness, as revealed in the constitution of my 
being. He made me to be an exalted creature — to 
be Christ-like, God-like, according to the measure of 
my capacity. If I become such — as I may through 
the grace offered me in Jesus the Redeemer — the 
whole intelligent creation will glorify God for what 
they see in me. 

Ah ! here is something set before me which makes 
it worth the while to live; worth the while to toil 
and wrestle and endure self-sacrifice, and pass 
through floods of sorrow if need be. I am called on 
to develop and advance towards perfection all that is 
in my being — all the germs of intellectual power and 
beauty and of spiritual power and beauty that my di- 
vine Creator hath implanted in my soul. What a sub- 
lime conception of life this gives me! What beams 
of hope and comfort it throws over earth's most for- 
bidding aspects ! Compared with this high concep- 
tion of what life should be, how poor and mean a 
thing it seems for one to live for his own pleasure, 
however refined and elegant and respectable the 
things in which he seeks it. The life in which God 
is to be glorified, as it begins in self-renunciation 
and the self-sacrifice of love, so it may have in its 
progress its trials — its Gethsemane and even its 
Calvary too — but its issue shall be in joy and tri- 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 185 

umph and true greatness ! Viewed from this high 
standpoint, how many of the things which solicit my 
attention, are seen at once to be wholly unworthy of 
my notice, and to have no relation, however attract- 
ive they may look, to the work which God has given 
me to do ! It being settled with myself that I am 
to glorify God in the highest possible use of the fac- 
ulties he has bestowed ; those pursuits that minister 
chiefly to self-indulgence, to pride, to ambition, to 
mere self-interest and advancement, are ruled out 
entirely from the circle within which I am at liberty 
to choose. The question what course I shall pur- 
sue is made comparatively a simple one. Whether 
endowed with one talent, or five, or ten, I am to use 
what I have in that way by which I may best unfold 
and exalt my own being and accomplish most per- 
fectly the holy will of God. Acting in this spirit, 
many questions of duty will be easily decided. 

Nor is this all. While a settled purpose in the 
heart to glorify God assists the judgment and makes 
it easier to decide what the particular work of life 
shall be, it also entitles one to expect that God him- 
self will give the wisdom needed in order to a right 
decision. The steps of a good man are ordered by 
the Lord. If any man lack wisdom and ask it of 
God, it shall be liberally given. So say the Scriptures. 



1 86 True Success in Life, 

The truth is, unfortunately, that most of us are prac- 
tically too nearly unbelievers after all. We admit, 
in terms, that through faith in the Redeemer, we 
have a Father in Heaven, with whom is infinite wis- 
dom and never-failing love to us ; and then we think 
and feel and act, where the most precious interests of 
our being are at stake, as though we were friendless 
orphans, with no one to care for, or to counsel us ! 
Therefore it is that so many grope and stumble and 
perhaps ultimately fall to rise no more. But if we 
do heartily believe that in God we live and move 
and have our being, even as we live and move and 
have our being in the vital air ; and that even beyond 
any earthly father, He delights to do his children 
good ; no doubt need find a place within our hearts, 
that if we desire to glorify him in doing the very 
work He has appointed for us, He will help us to 
discover what it is. 

No. You who must soon decide with what you 
will fill up your lives ; who feel yourselves to stand 
where paths diverge that run on to the eternal ages of 
your being ; be sure that if your souls be set lovingly 
to do the very work for which God has placed you 
in the world, so that you wait on Him to learn his 
will precisely, you shall not be left bewildered or in 
error. He will give you the wisdom to discern where 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 187 

duty lies. I am the Light of the World, saith Jesus, 
the Son of God. He that believeth in me shall not 
walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of Life. 
Whosoever shall be able to say with his dying lips — 
Father, I have earnestly endeavored to glorify Thee 
on the earth — shall be able to add also, in all truth, 
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 

Such are some of the more important aspects 
in which the question of one's life-work naturally 
presents itself. It must be possible, if it be so con- 
sidered, for any one who is about to enter on the 
stage of active life to decide with reasonable cer- 
tainty what part he ought to act. If each can do 
this, failure to do it is wholly inexcusable. Every 
young person should be thoroughly awake to this 
great duty and bestow on it most careful and earnest 
thought. No one has any right to leave himself in 
the condition of mere drift-wood on the sea, to be 
borne whithersoever accidental winds and currents 
may determine. 

It is the more needful to insist on this because 
it is quite manifest that many, on every side, do fail 
entirely to discover and to do their proper work in 
life. We do not now intend to speak of those who 
early resign themselves to low indulgences and live 
only to debase themselves and grieve or break the 



1 88 True Success in Life. 

hearts that love them. Every day exhibits from 
among these such wrecks of character and hope, as 
might well make angels weep. We refer rather to 
those who set out in life not without purpose and 
effort to bear some part in its useful and honorable 
activities. Even of these there are many, it is plain, 
who fail to find their fitting sphere, and so render 
their strivings wholly, or in part, abortive. 

Let us look at some obvious facts. A vast num- 
ber of young men and women in our country are 
now coming forward and choosing their pursuits, 
who by their natural gifts, their early training and 
their general education are qualified to act effect- 
ively. What proportion of these are applying them- 
selves to those pursuits which in the sober judgment 
of intelligent people are the highest, the most use- 
ful, the most sure to bring rich and permanent re- 
wards ? But a very small proportion indeed. By 
far the greater part are expending their energies in 
attaining inferior advantages, and are so failing to 
fulfil their proper destiny. 

Let us here be understood. We do not say that 
every one is fitted for, or ought to attempt to reach, 
the highest spheres of human action. But if many 
are content to live for something far below what 
they are capable of achieving, both themselves and 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 189 

the world are losers. We may divide the pursuits 
which, among us. are open to all, into two classes — 
those connected with the immediate and perhaps 
transient wants and gratifications of life ; and those 
which stand related to the highest interests, the 
most enduring welfare of society and of individual 
man. The pursuit of reputation, wealth, social po- 
sition, honorable official station, and the gratifica- 
tions of sensuous taste, are of the former sort. Self- 
culture, wisdom, intellectual and moral power, salu- 
tary influence, character, the things that exalt man 
and purify and elevate society and set both in har- 
mony with God, are examples of the other. The 
fact on which we wish to fix attention is, that of the 
young of both sexes the many all around us, are de- 
voting their thoughts and energies to the former, 
the inferior things ; while the comparatively few are 
living for the latter, the higher and more enduring. 
This fact is proof that the tide of advancing life 
among us is setting wrong. Nobody can doubt that 
the great function of teaching, for example — teach- 
ing by the pen in the best forms of authorship, 
teaching in the higher institutions of learning, and 
especially for young men, teaching in the Christian 
pulpit — is the noblest function in which human pow- 
er can be employed. Thousands of pens are w r anr- 



I go Trice Success in Life. 

ed, woman's not less than man's, dipped in truth and 
purity and beauty, for the writing of works of solid 
worth. Thousands of men are needed, able men, 
men of large culture and unbending principle, to 
stand at the fountains out of which flow the issues 
of the daily press ; and especially to fill the ranks 
of the Christian ministry, where they may lift up a 
voice of strength to be heard above the tumult of a 
madly rushing worldliness, pleading for truth and 
goodness and God. Yet such we can hardly find 
by tens. By far too great a number of the most 
gifted and best educated young men are pressing 
into the enticing marts of trade and speculation and 
the contests of political ambition. Pursuits that are 
lucrative and that promise to afford excitement are 
preferred to those that are most useful and ennobling. 
By far too few well educated women are found ap- 
plying themselves to teaching, to literature and 
other highest forms of effort appropriate to their sex. 
There is a manifest illusion in the matter which 
ought to be dispelled. 

What then is it that we wish, in calling attention 
to the great duty of choosing carefully one's life- 
work? Let me speak with freedom to those on 
whom the question is now pressing. I shall esteem 
myself most happy if I may help even in a slight de- 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 191 

gree to quicken aspiration in any one of your hearts 
towards those forms of effort which are really of 
highest and most enduring interest ; those by which 
most may be accomplished in your brief lives 
for the well-being of mankind ; those by which you 
yourselves may best gain that imperishable honor 
which God confers on such as honor Him. 

Yet not only to the highest pursuits generally 
for which you have capacities, would I direct your 
thoughts ; but also, specially, would I direct the at- 
tention of young men to the exalted sphere of influ- 
ence and power which is offered them in the Christian 
pulpit, of which perhaps they have not even thought. 
Too much by far, it seems to me, has been said and 
written about the hardships and the trials connected 
with the sacred office. The effect has doubtless 
been to make it seem to many thoughtful minds for- 
bidding. Grant that the work of the Christian min- 
istry has its incidental trials. What work has not, 
by which any thing truly great and good is going to 
be accomplished ? Can a man be an eminent mag- 
istrate, or statesmen, or lawyer, or physician, or 
even a successful merchant, mechanic, or farmer, 
without bearing toils and crosses ? No high career 
is possible without difficulties. I do not hesitate to 
assert that there is no nobler sphere of influence into 



192 True Success in Life. 

which consecrated talent, genius of the highest 
order, can make its way ; none in which there is 
richer satisfaction to be found; none in which the 
sublimest ends of mortal existence can be more ef- 
fectually attained, than that which the Christian min- 
istry affords. Out of its ranks are taken a large 
portion of the presidents and professors of our col- 
leges — the men who educate the mind that educates 
the people. By those who are, or have been, in it 
is written a great part, probably the greater part, of 
the more scholarly and enduring forms of literature. 
To the clergy philosophy has been, in all the Chris- 
tian centuries, indebted in large measure. Above 
all, the Christian ministry places those who are com- 
petent to its high offices in actual contact with the 
living, throbbing heart of humanity in its diversified 
and mighty struggles with the labors, perils and 
sorrows of its lot ; there, by the help of God and the 
Gospel of his grace, to rouse, to stimulate, to soothe 
and comfort, to mould to virtue and to inspire with 
immortal hopes those who are to live when all the 
glory of this world has faded into air ! Ah, there is, 
there can be nothing better, nothing higher, than 
such a work as this for those to whom God has given 
the natural powers, the educational culture and the 
holy faith in Christ and in his cross, which it de- 



The Choice of a Life-Work. 193 

mands. Let this conviction mingle with your pro- 
foundest thoughts, when you are making the de- 
cision as to what shall be the work that is to fill 
your opening lives. 

Remember, you can bear your part in this earthly 
life but once. If, choosing unwisely, your life ex- 
periment shall prove a failure, the disaster cannot be 
retrieved and its results will be felt forever. But oh, 
how inspiring is the thought of the issues that await 
you, if in the glow of opening manhood, you bring 
to God's altar the vigor of your powers, the wealth 
of your acquisitions, and the hopes of coming years ; 
and consecrating all with a loving heart to Christ, 
fill up your lives with labors which honor God and 
bless the world and ennoble your own being. They 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the fir- 
mament, and they that turn many to righteousness, 
as the stars forever and ever ! Paul, Luther, Bun- 
yan, Whitefield, Edwards, the great company of the 
faithful preachers of all ages, how they glow with 
commingled lustre in the eternal galaxy of heaven. 
Happy, thrice happy the young man who shall find 
for himself a place in that illustrious host! 

13 



MORAL COURAGE. 



" Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went 
into his house ; and his windows being open in his chamber 
towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, 
and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." 
— Daniel VI. 10. 



X. 

MORAL COURAGE. 

r T is no new thing that political life is full of sel- 
A fishness — of ambition, envy, hatred and intrigue. 
It has been so always. Both sacred and secular 
history clearly show this. Places of power and 
trust, when Babylon was in her glory, thousands of 
years ago, were not filled generally with persons of 
angelic virtue, any more than such places are seen 
to be in our own time. There was then one Daniel 
in the midst of a great number of men in power 
who were utterly unprincipled and base ; about the 
same proportion between the upright and the corrupt 
which it is common to look for now. The result of 
this want of virtue in public men was also then the 
same that we now so often witness. The wicked, 
rebuked by the shining excellence of the good, com- 
bine their malice and their arts to destroy him if 
they can. They are compelled to testify to his 
faultless wisdom and unblemished purity, even in 



198 True Success in Life. 

the act of resolving on his ruin. Look at the 
account of their proceedings : 

" They said among themselves, We shall not find 
any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it 
against him concerning the law of his God. So 
they persuaded the King to make a decree that 
whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man 
for thirty days, except of the King himself, he should 
be cast into the den of lions." 

Now they were sure of their victim. Why sure ? 
Because they knew Daniel well enough to know 
that his integrity was not a mere pretense, a hypo- 
critical veil to cover a false heart. Imagine him to 
have been one of our oily, flexible, and trimming 
modern politicians. How easily and plausibly he 
would have found a way to bend his conscience into 
a convenient harmony with the king's decree ! With 
what gravity he would have assigned his reasons ! 
How innocently he would have said, perhaps, that 
the mere outward act of conformity could do no 
harm and would not really interfere with all usual 
acts of the true worship of God in his heart ! If 
Daniel had been a person of this character, the 
scheme of the presidents and princes would have 
done no credit to their cunning. But they knew 
their man and had no doubt what he would do. 



Moral Courage. 199 

The result justified their judgment. Daniel 
understood perfectly his position. He stood at the 
summit of earthly greatness, and he saw that the 
disregard of the enacted law would bring him not 
only to dishonor, but also to cruel death. He was 
loyal to his king and loved him personally. He 
must have felt himself brought to a painful strait. 
It does not appear that he expected a divine inter- 
position for his deliverance. It is not at all proba- 
ble he did. He stood face to face with the penalty 
of the law. 

What then do you see ? Not the slightest sign 
of faltering ; no agitation, no conflict. He saw the 
path of duty straight before him, and he travelled 
calmly on. The force and truthfulness — the genu- 
ine moral grandeur of his character — shine out in 
quiet beauty. There is a tranquil air about the 
very statement of what he did, which conveys the 
impression that it was most coolly and deliberately 
done. " Now when Daniel knew that the writing 
was signed, he went into his house ; and his win- 
dows being open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, 
he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and 
prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did 
aforetime." 

I believe that the annals of human heroism have 



200 True Success in Life> 

furnished no example of moral courage superior to 
this. This inflexible moral courage, as it is one of 
the rarest, so it is one of the noblest elements of 
character. It is absolutely essential to any high 
degree of excellence. It is one of the Christian vir- 
tues most strikingly exemplified by Christ himself, 
and most earnestly insisted on in the New Testa- 
ment. It does not come by accident. It is not a 
result of temperament and constitution. It belongs 
only to true goodness, and, like all the virtues, 
grows by culture. It is a virtue for the exercise of 
which every day furnishes occasion ; and one which 
each of us must daily exemplify if we mean to live 
to any really worthy end. Consider a little its 
nature and manifestations. 

In its nature, moral courage differs materially 
from merely natural courage. Natural courage is 
firmness and steadiness of nerve in the presence of 
natural evil. It is to a great extent a constitution- 
al thing — an instinct or an impulse of strong natures. 
Men possess this in common with animals. But 
moral courage is strength of soul in the presence of 
the difficulties and dangers to be encountered in 
doing right. It has its origin in rational judgment 
and moral choice, and not in temperament, or mere 
excitement. Its basis is a clear conviction of duty 



Moral Courage. 201 

combined with a settled decision and purpose of 
the soul that duty shall be done at all events. Of 
course it is an expression of character, and not of 
any natural endowment. No doubt natural courage 
may be a great help — an important ally to moral 
courage ; but the two must be clearly distinguished 
in our thoughts. It was because Daniel feared God, 
believed in God as good and holy, and as faithful to 
those that served him ; it was because that he him- 
self loved the right and recognized his obligation to 
do it always, that he was not to be driven to do 
wrong by any threats, or the presence of the most 
frightful danger. We may perhaps best express the 
nature of moral courage by saying that it is loyalty 
to God and duty, expressing itself in firmness of 
soul in conflict with what is wrong. 

We turn then to its effects. If one really pos- 
sesses moral courage, how will it reveal itself in his 
character and life ? 

Moral courage, first of all, is sure to reveal itself 
in truthfulness. Duplicity, falsehood, hypocrisy, 
while they are the offspring of an unprincipled and 
evil heart, are commonly the immediate result of 
cowardice. He who dare not seem to be, what he 
he is conscious that he is, affects to be something 
that he is conscious he is not. How large a 



202 True Success hi Life. 

portion of what is said and done in the ordinary 
intercourse of society consists of attempts to 
gain credit by false pretences ! How small ex- 
ception can be made to the statement — Every 
man walketh in a vain show ! Instead of striv- 
ing to be what they ought to be and to do what 
they ought to do, a great majority, there is reason 
to fear, are mainly concerned to seem to be what 
the tone of society about them may demand. Here 
lies the power of fashion. It rules multitudes and 
leads them into what is injurious or wrong, because 
those multitudes are afraid to maintain th£ir indi- 
viduality and to act under a sense of personal re- 
sponsibility to God. There is far more of real cow- 
ardice in most of us than we are ready to suspect ; 
and because of this, frank, open, honest transparency 
of character is rare. 

But so far as any one has genuine moral courage 
he is emancipated from cowardly servility. It made 
no difference to Daniel that all the presidents and 
princes — the whole court as well as the whole people 
of the realm, were going to worship, or pretend to 
worship, the king. He could not worship him, and 
therefore would make no such pretence. He would 
be perfectly truthful. He would let king, court- 
iers and people see just what his convictions 



Moral Courage. 203 

were, and abide the issue. This is the course 
to which moral courage necessarily leads. Be- 
cause it fears nothing but wrong, and acts as in 
the presence of God and in obedience to conscience, 
it has nothing to conceal. It is not concerned as to 
what others may think or say, if God and conscience 
are satisfied. It thus makes a truthful character, 
which ail can read and understand. The enemies 
of Daniel, as we have noticed, read him rightly. If 
he had been a Talleyrand or a Metternich, they 
would never have thought of attempting to ruin him 
by such a plot — a plot that took for granted that he 
would not prevaricate nor falsify. So now, wher- 
ever a man of true moral courage is found, he is 
known and read of all as a truthful man — one on 
whom there is no outward garb of goodness that 
trial may strip away. What a world of trouble in 
concealing would many people be saved by the pos- 
session of moral courage ! What a vast amount of 
anxiety lest their veils should be seen through 
would they so escape ! 

Calmness — the calmness of a soul collected and 
self-possessed, is likewise a product of moral cour- 
age. Agitation is the product of fear. It indicates 
always a want either of natural or moral courage. 
Cowards die many times, the valiant never taste 



204 True Success in Life. 

death but once, says an old adage. It is a great 
misery, as well as a great weakness, to be half one's 
life harassed with fears of evils, that are, many of 
them, perhaps only imaginary ; or, in the presence 
of real and great dangers, to feel such perturbation 
as to lose one's self-command. Mere natural courage 
may save from this, when it is particularly firm. But 
moral courage does it more effectually by far ; for it 
makes one feel strong not in himself alone, but 
strong in God and in the right. Natural courage, 
even the firmest, may fail under certain kinds of 
trial. It may enable one to march up coolly to the 
cannon's mouth, and yet fail him when he must con- 
front the sneers of men. The duellist, by mere nat- 
ural courage, may go out calmly to meet his antag- 
onist in mortal combat ; but only moral courage can 
enable him calmly to face the world while he de- 
clines the challenge. 

In Daniel's case it was not merely death that 
was before him, but dishonor. He stood on the 
pinnacle of earthly glory. He had won the affec- 
tion of his sovereign and owed to him the honors he 
enjoyed. Now he must seem disloyal, a rebel 
against his benefactor, must fall misunderstood and 
leave a name branded with infamy to future ages. 
So at this stage of events the case appeared. To 



Moral Courage. 205 

die with credit fighting for his king would have been 
a trifle in comparison with the fate that seemed ac- 
tually before him. To enable him to meet the one 
fate calmly, natural courage might suffice ; moral 
courage only could prepare him calmly to meet the 
other. It was because of his loyalty to God, because 
of his profound conviction that duty must be done, 
that he was able to act in all collectedness of spirit 
as the text describes. The right was plain. It was 
the long since settled law of his whole life, that the 
right was always to be accepted as the best. Here 
then he stood as on a rock. In this view his calm- 
ness seems quite natural. So it must ever be. Why 
should the man be agitated, though a world were in 
arms against him, who is thoroughly convinced that 
his true welfare is only to be secured by meeting 
the demands of God and duty, and abiding the re- 
sult with patient confidence ? He may see suffering 
to be inevitable. He may see disgrace and con- 
tempt from the world awaiting him ; a den of lions 
like Daniel, or a cross, as in the case of one far 
greater. But since his faith that God is with the 
right and will give it triumph and recompense at 
last is firm, he can calm and sustain his soul in the 
midst of all. If God be for me, who can be against 
me ? — he can say. The wicked fleeth when no man 



206 True Success in Life. 

pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. A 
good conscience is the best antidote to agitation and 
distress when perils thicken around one ; and this is 
inseparable from moral courage — is indeed its very 
essence. 

Moral courage is also pre-eminently a source of 
strength. The calmness given by it, and of which 
we have just spoken, is not the calmness of a 
passive weakness that wants energy to act. It is 
the calmness of settled purpose, and is not only 
consistent with energy of will, but in fact supposes 
it. Mere impulse and feeling, though they may 
prompt to sudden energy of effort, do not give abid- 
ing strength. But moral courage, because it is 
grounded on devotion to God and rational convic- 
tions of duty, supplies a steady power, a sober, deep, 
persistent earnestness, which is not fitful, and does 
not spend itself by transient effort. God and duty 
are evermore the same. They are great and im- 
pressive realities. Whoever acts with reference, 
primarily, to these will never find his inspiration 
and his motives fail. He has no occasion to stop or 
falter in his course, because he finds his way hedged 
up with difficulties or by dangers that are well fitted 
to appall. What ought to be done ? this is the only 
question. That must be done ; this is the fixed 



Moral Courage. 207 

conclusion. Then comes the bending of every en- 
ergy, the girding up of the soul to meet the emer- 
gencies of the case, whatever they may be. 

Look at Daniel. What was it but his moral 
courage that carried him through the earlier perils 
of his career and made him equal to all occasions ? 
What else gave him the strength of character that 
set him next the king in power? He had always 
dared to do his duty ; this was the secret of his 
success ; and in this great trial to which the text 
relates, it is plain that the strength in which he bore 
himself in a manner so heroic, was the strength sup- 
plied by moral conviction and by faith. The same 
was true in the case of his three friends who shrunk 
from the fiery furnace seven times heated. So in 
many other cases. Men of moral courage, men 
that were bold because they feared God and loved 
the right, were always strong in action, sure to 
achieve the noblest things within the reach of possi- 
bility. No matter what other qualities men have 
had that have lacked true moral courage, the want 
of this has made them comparatively weak. Com- 
pare, for example, Erasmus with Luther. Both 
were able men. Erasmus was the more learned of 
the two. But Luther breasted the mighty current 
of human thought, and changed its course by his 



2o8 Tr?ie Success in Life. 

own energy of will. Erasmus trimmed and whiffled 
and drifted with the tide. He was hardly felt 
directly as a power in the living world. History 
abounds in such examples. 

It need only be added that moral courage im- 
parts to the character of the person who exhibits it 
an exalted beauty and impressiveness. When you 
read of Moses, as counting the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt ; of Jere- 
miah persisting in announcing to king and court the 
coming captivity at Babylon, though menaced with 
death and loaded with insult and abuse ; of Daniel, 
praying at his open window, in the face of the 
king's commandment and in certain prospect of the 
den of lions ; of Paul preaching Christ and his cross 
to mocking Greeks at Athens and Corinth, and at 
Rome, and in the very palace of Nero, in expecta- 
tion of cruel death ; you not only do homage to the 
actions, but you admire and reverence the men. A 
moral beauty shines out in their exhibitions of moral 
courage that all the world regard with admiration 
and reverence. 

So in the cases that are found in ordinary cir- 
cumstances. A young man surrounded by profli- 
gate companions and urged to yield to their indul- 
gences, but who is morally brave enough, in spite 



Moral Courage. 209 

of jeers and taunts, to keep himself unsullied ; a 
statesman who amidst foul corruption, and selfish 
and unscrupulous intrigue, withholds his hands from 
bribes, and keeps his honor and his truth untar- 
nished; the man of business, who to his own loss re- 
fuses to adopt the false maxims and immoral prac- 
tices which obtain in the marts of trade ; the men 
and women who refuse to yield to the demands of 
fashionable life, when its rules are in conflict with 
health and purity of heart, or would lead them where 
thoughts of God and duty would be painful; all, in 
short, who have the moral courage to stand by the 
good and right while most around them yield to 
what is evil, shine with a moral lustre which is ad- 
mired by God and angels, and to which even bad 
men are compelled to do homage in their hearts. 

Among the most eminent of the generals of 
Frederick the Great of Prussia was Ziethen. He 
had grown grey in the service of the king, and stood 
high in his favor. While Frederick was an infidel and 
scoffer, Ziethen was a decided and earnest Chris- 
tian. On one occasion Zeithen, it is related, had 
excused himself from court to attend the commun- 
ion service. A few days after when with a number 
of officers he was dining with the king, Frederick 
turned on him before all the company, and said in a 
14 



2io Trite Success in Life. 

bantering tone, "Well, Ziethen, how did the sacra- 
ment digest last Friday ?" The old general shook 
significantly his hoary locks, and calmly rising, said, 
in substance, "Your majesty knows very well that I 
have often risked my life to serve you, and that I am 
now ready to lay it down if you require it. But 
your majesty does wrong to treat the Christian reli- 
gion with disrespect. You owe to it the safety of 
your throne and the stability of your government. 
You must pardon an old servant who cannot bear in 
silence any disrespect done to his Lord and Saviour.'' 

It was a grand rebuke, a splendid instance of a 
true moral courage. The king could not resist it. 
He held out his hand to the old soldier and said, 
begging his forgiveness, " Happy Ziethen, you shall 
be disturbed no more." Ah, there was a higher 
glory in that act than in the most brilliant thing the 
warrior ever had done upon the battle-field. His 
character at that moment was invested with a di- 
vine, a holy beauty. It appeared morally sublime. 

If, then, such is the nature of moral courage and 
such its effects on character ; if it is in its essence 
loyalty to God and duty expressing itself in action, 
and produces truthfulness, calmness of spirit, energy 
in doing right, and admirable lustre and dignity of 
the entire man, well may it ba lamented that there 



Moral Courage. 21 1 

is so little of it in the world. There may be indeed, 
there probably is, more of it than at first thought we 
are ready to suppose; for there is need of it, and 
room to exercise it, not merely on great and public 
occasions, but in the little affairs and in the private 
scenes of life. The eye of God, no doubt, discerns 
this, as it does other Christian graces, in an obscu- 
rity that hides it from human observation. 

But oh, how sad a want of moral courage do we 
see on every side, and even feel within ourselves ! Is it 
not a palpable proof of degeneracy in our social life, 
our civil and our religious life, that it is so rare to 
see men and women of inflexible moral principle — 
who not only are on the side of God and of what is 
good and right, but are not ashamed to say so any- 
where, and are sure to say so whenever they are 
asked to lend their countenance to what is wrong ! 
Certainly in whatever respect we may fancy that 
we surpass our fathers, we are far inferior, the aver- 
age of us, to those who lived in the earlier days of 
our country's history, in open, conscientious bold- 
ness for the right. We are quite ready to spin fine 
theories of duty. We can talk very eloquently 
about it. But whenever there is anv occasion for 
that courage which manfully faces the discomfort or 
the danger of doing right in obedience to God 



212 True Success in Life. 

and conscience, against the sneers or the hostility 
of men, is it not true that our knees are weak, and 
our behavior often pusillanimous ? Are we not too 
much in the case of Peter when a maid-servant 
scared him with a question ? Let others us-e pro- 
fane language in our presence, or utter indecent 
jests or dishonor the Sabbath day, or speak against 
God and religion, how few are there of us who are 
ready promptly, and in a fitting manner, to rebuke 
them ! How few dare speak for Christ, like Ziethen, 
before the proud, the scornful, the elevated in posi- 
tion ! How many destroy their peace of mind, im- 
pair their Christian character, dishonor religion and 
lose the respect of even worldly people, by yielding 
to evil popular tastes and usages, for lack of bold- 
ness to resist them ! 

Remember Daniel, then, young man or woman. 
Be ashamed to be chargeable with moral cowardice. 
Let the noble grace of moral courage be in you 
and abound. The church and the world alike de- 
mand it of you if you will be truly successful men 
and women, that you be bold for God and duty. 
One who dares to be consistent, true to conscience, 
fearless of the world, will have greater power for 
good than a score of the time-serving and unstable. 
Christ, the Captain of salvation, the Lord of the 



Moral Courage, 213 

world, requires brave men for the maintaining of his 
cause, 

Especially take notice, that loyalty to God and 
the moral courage that expresses this produces real 
greatness — character really illustrious and worthy to 
be admired. The world is full of fictitious great- 
ness — mere shows of greatness. Be not deceived 
by what is empty. There is no enduring greatness, 
there can be none, apart from allegiance to God and 
adherence to the right. It is one of the proofs that 
our religion is divine, that it demands such moral 
courage. Remember, when you are tempted to yield 
to what is wrong, to hold your peace when you ought 
to speak, or to countenance the sin of others, the 
sublime example at which we have been looking. 
There is no honor like that of acting with God and 
for God and being approved of him. This is honor 
that will endure, when all the honors of this world 
have vanished like a dream. The contempt of men 
is harmless, dens of lions and fiery furnaces are harm- 
less, cruel nails and spears and torturing racks are 
harmless, to him whose faith takes hold on God, and 
whose steadfast soul knows nothing but to be forever 
true to Him ! A crown awaits him, brighter than 
ever earthly monarch wore, at the resurrection of 
the just ! 



MORAL COURAGE, CONTINUED. 



" So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the 
reign of Cyrus the Persian." — Dan. vi. 28. 



XI. 
MORAL COURAGE, CONTINUED. 

T T was by no means the end of the moral cour- 
A age of Daniel that it produced in himself such 
excellent results as those to which we have referred. 
It had other results most interesting and important, 
besides those which appeared in his own character 
and conduct. The whole sequel of the story is 
equally full of striking incidents and of useful les- 
sons. Let us look at the details. 

We have, first of all, the complete success, for 
the time, of Daniel's enemies in their wicked project. 
As they had calculated, he had incurred the pen- 
alty of the malicious law which they had devised 
for his destruction. How they exulted at the 
thought that the hated superior, whose merit re- 
buked them and whose influence they envied, w r as 
now to perish in disgrace ! They commended doubt- 
less their own sagacity in hitting on so ingenious 
and effectual an expedient. So far they were allow- 
ed by Providence to go. It was their hour of ap- 



2J8 True Success in Life. 

parent triumph, and in it they rejoiced, little dream- 
ing what the future had in store. 

Next comes the deep sorrow of the king and 
the clear exhibition of his unbounded confidence in 
Daniel and his true affection for him. The king 
finds that he has been entrapped, and cannot extri- 
cate himself; he has been made unwittingly to bind 
himself to put Daniel to death on account of that 
very virtue in him for the sake of which he himself 
had loved and honored him. He reproached him- 
self for his want of caution, and sought, though in 
vain, to save his favorite from death. 

Then follows the execution of the sentence. 
Here again we see what confidence in the reality of 
his piety, the firmness of Daniel had inspired. This 
idolatrous king, who did not shrink from being 
himself worshipped, was yet so impressed with the 
whole character of Daniel, that he felt a confident 
hope that his God would even deliver him from the 
mouths of the hungry lions. 

Then ensues the night of anxious suspense in 
which, fasting and in sorrow, probably between hope 
and fear as to the event — the king waited for the 
morrow. It came to bring the discovery that by 
the power of God the righteous man had been de- 
livered, to the utter defeat of his malignant foes. 



Moral Courage, Continued. 219 

It is difficult to imagine anything more touching 
than this part of the story. The tenderness of the 
king who has watched away the night in fasting ; 
who hurries with the early dawn, impatient to know 
whether the servant of the living God were indeed 
preserved alive ; the tranquil tone of the Prophet's 
answer — as if even among wild beasts his equanimity 
had been undisturbed ; the entire scene is one of 
the most affecting in all history. 

As the next step, the history shows us the recom- 
pense of defeat and ruin overtaking the men of 
subtilty and spite. This is followed by the decree 
in which God, the God of Daniel, is glorified before 
all the nations of the empire. 

Then at last we have the grand result as regards 
the future of Daniel himself. He triumphs in the 
end, and through this and the following reign he 
continued at the summit of earthly glory. " So this 
Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the 
reign of Cyrus the Persian." His character shone 
out as the sun when the brief eclipse is past. He 
found that God could make his service, even when 
most perilous, not only safe but blessed. 

Now it is plain that this whole series of events 
followed as the consequences of Daniel's moral 
courage. It was this that enabled his enemies to 



220 True Success in Life. 

find occasion against him. It was this that enlisted 
on his behalf the sympathies of the king. It was 
this that secured the interposition of God. It was 
this that brought about the destruction of his ene- 
mies. It was this that won glory to God's name. 
It was this finally that secured his own ultimate 
and long continued prosperity and happiness. 

Here then, we have an admirable illustration of 
the remoter results of moral courage which we will 
now proceed to notice more particularly — following 
throughout the general order of the facts to which 
we have just referred. 

It is obvious, you will observe, that although 
moral courage is, as we have seen, one of the highest 
virtues — one eminently necessary to a successful 
life — it may, for a season, give advantage to the 
bad against those who are bravely good. The 
Scriptures nowhere promise, and we are not to ex- 
pect that even the greatest courage for the right 
will always insure to us immediate advantage in 
the contest on its behalf. If it were certain that it 
would, there would be far less of nobleness in moral 
courage than there is. Christ teaches abundantly 
that the good must expect to suffer for the right. He 
himself did. The great souls of the ancient dispen- 
sation did ; and so have those of all the modern cen- 



Moral Courage, Continued. 221 

turies. As God means to develope, and exercise, 
and illustrate the graces of those who are His, and 
by means of them to show the world the nature and 
power of real goodness, he' delays their triumph for 
longer or shorter periods in order to attain these 
ends. He who could stop the mouths of lions, 
could just as easily have prevented the presidents 
and princes from obtaining the passage of the law, 
and have saved Daniel the trial of his courage ; or, 
could have smitten them all with death, as he did the 
hosts of Sennacherib, when afterwards they clamored 
for its execution. But God suffered them to pro- 
ceed, because he had important ends to answer ; 
and allowed them to place Daniel's good name and 
even his life in jeopardy. Cowardice — a yielding 
to the law would have saved him for the time. His 
moral courage was the very thing which gave his 
adversaries temporarily their advantage. Because 
they were evil and he was good, there was nothing for 
him to do in the circumstances, but to suffer, or to 
abandon God and conscience. 

This then should be settled in your mind, young 
man or woman, to save you from discouragement ; 
that you are not to think it strange that the devil 
and his friends should be able, in many instances, 
for the moment, to turn your conscientious firmness 



222 True Success in Life, 

to your harm, and so by means of this to seem to be 
successful in their malice. It is not strange, but a 
thing very likely to occur ; and when it does, you 
are to say within yourself: " But this is not the end ; 
wait a little ; I can suffer now and bide my time. 
The battle is not decided by the opening skirmish. 
He wins who has the field and force when the grand 
set-to is finished !" The immediate advantage of the 
wicked against the good is no real victory, if it be 
liable in the long run to be turned into disaster and 
defeat. 

That such is the fact is plain. For while the 
moral courage of a good man may be the very thing 
by means of which his foes will gain some tempo- 
rary advantage over him, it is sure at the same time 
to secure for him the respect and sympathy of those 
who can appreciate his character. While those who 
envied Daniel his high station and his influence 
were ready to use his conscientiousness to ruin him, 
that very thing, as it appeared, had secured for him 
not only the respect and confidence, but the warm 
affection of the king. 

This is the common case. Maintain the right, 
do that which you clearly see you ought to do in the 
face of popular clamor, of odium, of personal danger 
even, if need be ; do it calmly, meekly, sincerely ; 



Moral Courage, Continued. 223 

let it be seen that you act in no perverse and wilful 
spirit, but are moved by a deep and serious convic- 
tion of what you owe to God and to your con- 
science ; and though you seem to stand alone, and 
hear no approving voices, be sure that you have 
both the approbation and the sympathy of all who 
are capable of appreciating goodness, and who un- 
derstand your spirit and your motives. This is one 
of the compensations of suffering in steadfast devo- 
tion to what is right. Not only the truly godly, but 
others, who are not utterly given up to evil, find 
that their hearts spontaneously do homage to brave 
and faithful souls whom they see firm, undaunted, 
resolute in duty, incapable of being coaxed, or 
argued, or driven by any fear, into consent to what 
is wrong. 

I well remember the case of a young man, not 
now living, I believe, who furnished one of the most 
striking instances of this that I have happened to 
know of personally. In one of those outbreaks of 
insubordination to authority which have sometimes 
shaken our colleges to their centres, a very large 
majority of the students were banded in open rebel- 
lion and refused to attend to any college duty. The 
hour of recitation came. In one of the divisions 
there was one young man who alone felt that his 



224 True Success in Life. 

duty called him to the recitation-room as usual. 
He said not a word to anybody, but quietly, modest- 
ly, but with unflinching moral courage, took his 
book and straight through groups of exasperated 
fellow students, and storms of groans and hisses, he 
proceeded to his usual place, and went through the 
solitary exercise. This he did for several days. 
What then was the result ? He not only had the 
cordial sympathy of the faculty of the college and 
of every loyal student, but even those who had 
heaped abuse upon him in the end honored him 
the more ; and from that time forward he was re- 
garded as the man whom nothing could cause to 
disobey his conscience. 

It always has been and always will be so. The 
wrath and contempt which you provoke in boldly 
doing right will pass by with the hour. The respect 
and confidence you win will abide in the minds of 
those about you to your permanent comfort and 
advantage. Only your moral courage must be gen- 
uine, not pretended. A pretence is sure to be 
detected and despised. 

Yet further, the moral courage which com- 
mands the respect and sympathy of men, is certain 
to secure also the approbation and the help of God. 
Them that honor me I will honor, is the pledge of 



Moral Courage , Continued, 22$ 

God. Blessed are ye, said Christ- — when men shall 
revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all man- 
ner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, 
and be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in 
heaven. If God is full of tenderness to those that 
serve Him, and delights to smile on them and com- 
fort them in all their trials, He must especially de- 
light to manifest his kindness to them when the tri- 
als they are enduring have been brought on them 
by their fidelity to Him. 

Look at the case of Daniel. Consider how great 
his trial was. From the pinnacle of earthly grand- 
eur he descended to take the place of a condemned 
criminal and to meet, as he must have supposed, a 
violent death — death in a most horrid form. Such 
to the view of man was his position. Such would 
have been the history of the matter — had the 
agency of man only been concerned. Even the 
king ensnared by his cunning courtiers, can only 
fast and weep, and is unable to deliver. The victim 
is carried to the place of execution. He is let down 
into the den of hungry animals and the door is shut 
and sealed. It was indeed the extremity of trial — 
degradation and death combined. But Daniel had 
accepted all this out of loyalty to God. He gave 
himself to it for the honor of God, and because he 



226 True Success in Life, 

desired to please him. Could God then, the infinite- 
ly loving, be indifferent to his condition, and with- 
out sympathy for his suffering ? Could he fail to ap- 
plaud his faithful servant and to smile on him and 
assist him ? That would have been contrary to all 
that was known of the divine goodness. So the 
king thought. So Daniel doubtless thought. Nei- 
ther of them, perhaps, knew certainly what God 
would do. But they were sure that He would in any 
event bless and sustain his servant in the strait to 
which he was reduced solely by love and obedience 
to Him ; and the event more than justified their 
confidence. 

So it will be always. If you suffer out of faith- 
fulness to God and because you do his will, never 
fear that he will be unmindful of you while you are 
passing through the suffering. He will give you a 
most comforting and sustaining sense of his approv- 
al and will make your strength equal to your need. 
He may not see it best to deliver you from impend- 
ing evil. He may see it best that you should suffer 
for him even unto death. But he knows how to 
make the darkest dungeon light, and the bitterest 
anguish sweet. He has done this — has He not? — in 
the case of thousands who have endured contempt 
and shame and death itself for Him. He does not ask 



Moral Courage, Continued. 22 7 

us, He will not permit us to expose ourselves to evil 
on His account, without reward. With His favor and 
blessing, He will abundantly repay every sacrifice 
and every pang. When the godly Rutherford of 
Scotland was lying in prison for preaching Christ, 
he wrote as follows — " At my first entry here, my 
dumb Sabbaths " — alluding to the fact that he was 
not allowed to preach — "broke my heart, and I 
would not be comforted. But now He whom my 
soul loveth is come again, and it pleaseth him to 
feast me with the kisses of his love. A king dineth 
with me and his spikenard casteth a sweet smell. I 
never knew, by my nine years' preaching, so much 
of Christ's love, as He has taught me in Aberdeen 
by six months' imprisonment. It is the truth of 
Christ I now suffer for ; and He hath sealed my 
suffering with the comforts of His Spirit." Such is 
God's recompense of moral courage. He is with 
those always who dare to suffer in his service. 

But more than this. The moral courage of faith- 
ful souls, according to the plan and purpose of God, 
does positively insure to them an ultimate triumph 
over those at whose hands they have suffered wrong. 
We said in the beginning that moral courage in 
the true-hearted sometimes gave their enemies a 
temporary advantage. It was so in the case of 



228 True Success in Life. 

Daniel. It enabled them to send him to the den of 
lions. But that was not the end. How short the 
time before the tables were turned entirely ! Their 
victim came forth unharmed ; and they with their 
wives and children, came to the miserable fate 
which they had so maliciously prepared for him. 

Such a result in any case does not surprise us, 
since we believe that God governs the world in 
righteousness. We should expect always to see 
the wicked fall into their own snare and suffer what 
they had intended to inflict upon the innocent, did 
we not know that there is only a beginning of retri- 
bution here, and that the sequel is reserved to the 
coming world. It is very apt to happen, however, 
that the bravely good see even in this world the 
deep mortification, the complete humiliation, and 
perhaps the utter ruin, of those who have sought 
their disgrace or their destruction. When the 
workers of iniquity exalt themselves, it is that they 
may be destroyed forever. It is the divine purpose 
that the triumphing of the wicked shall be short. 
The day of their calamity hasteneth ! Their feet 
shall slide in due time ! Such is the style in which 
the Holy Scriptures speak. If therefore, courageous 
souls, against whom the evil and base prevail for a 
little while, fail to see their utter defeat and down- 



Moral Courage, Continued. 229 

fall in this present world, they are sure to witness 
it, in a brief space, in that coming state in which all 
the false and corrupt shall, like Judas, go to their 
own place. The illustrious company of those who 
have dared to die, and have been allowed to die, for 
God and truth — have speedily seen the ferocious 
rabbles, or the unprincipled and reckless rulers that 
had seemed triumphant themselves sinking to a 
death more terrible than that of fire and sword and 
savage beasts. It is thus that while virtue and 
piety seem at times to be overcome, they in fact 
triumph after all ; and that while baseness seems to 
prosper for a season, it meets at last a terrible catas- 
trophe. Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with 
him ; for the reward of his hands shall be given 
him, saith the unfailing word of God. It is a fixed 
ordinance of heaven. 

It only remains to say, that the moral courage 
which is true to God and duty in the face of crosses 
and dangers, is certain to place the persons them- 
selves who exercise it, in an exalted position in the 
end. Daniel was taken up out of the lions' den to be 
held up, in the king's proclamation or decree through- 
out the whole kingdom, as an illustrious example 
of piety — as the well proved friend and worshipper 
of the true and living God. He had the delightful 



230 .. True Success in Life. 

consciousness of having helped to make God known 
to multitudes, as a God worthy to be served. He 
was finally restored to his high position and con- 
firmed in it to the end of a long life ; all of which 
present exaltation and happiness was but a type 
and a small beginning of the eternal dignity and 
glory to which he was eventually raised in heav- 
en. Was not his life as a whole a true and a sublime 
success ? He was called by an angel the greatly 
beloved of God — the highest distinction and bless- 
edness in the universe. 

Such shall be your experience and mine, young 
men and women, if we attain and exemplify the 
moral courage which dares to do what conscience 
requires — -what right requires, what God requires, 
unawed by men, unswayed by inclination, uncor- 
rupted by the maxims and fashions of the world. 
You may suffer in the outset because you will not 
yield to what is evil. You may even be reduced to 
great extremities. But through trials, through re- 
proach and shame, through dangers, however great 
and fearful, you shall steadily advance toward the 
attainment of all that your highest wishes can de- 
sire. In the present life you may find yourselves 
advanced to greater prosperity, influence, respect 
from others, and power to accomplish good, than 



Moral Courage ', Continued. 231 

you had ever hoped for ; or if not this, you shall 
reach the nobler exaltation to which the greatest 
and the best of earth — the holy undaunted souls 
who have lived in the fear of God and have let 
nothing turn them from the doing of his will — are 
already raised in heaven. While the time-serving 
and unprincipled, the self-pleasing, the treacherous, 
the false, the cowardly, shall sink, however high 
they may have climbed for a little while, to ultimate 
disgrace and hopeless ruin, every true, firm, faith- 
ful, God-regarding soul, shall surely advance to the 
full possession of the highest dignities and the 
noblest happiness that the King of the Universe can 
give. Though one should only have had opportu= 
nity to show his moral courage in the little affairs 
of common life, and not on any great occasion, it 
will be all the same. Possess the virtue, and show 
it in resisting even the most trivial wrong and in 
upholding right even in little things, it shall be all 
the same. Christ will say to you at last — He that 
is faithful in that w T hich is least, is faithful also in 
much. Well done good and faithful servant — enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord ! 

Let it be remembered too that it is not enough 
that one understand the subject. It is not enough 
to admire the virtue, as described or as exemplified 



232 True Success in Life. 

in others. The grand thing is that each possess it 
and exemplify it in himself or herself. Of what use 
is it that we praise the moral courage of Daniel, 
or of others who have acted in his spirit, if we suffer 
ourselves to be intimidated by the worldly, the scof- 
fer, the profane, the despiser; or to be turned aside 
from what we know to be our duty by the flatteries, 
the persuasions, the laughter, the jests, the ridicule, 
or the affected piety of those who at heart are the 
enemies of goodness ? It ought surely to move us to 
the task of making this great attainment, to reflect 
that it at once produces the highest style of char- 
acter, and raises to the most desirable condition 
and destiny. Where are the Princes and the Pres- 
idents of Babylon with all their glory now ? Where 
is Daniel ? Where are his three friends that braved 
the glowing furnace ? Where are the Holy Apostles, 
the martyrs of all ages, the countless numbers in 
private life, never heard of by the world, who have 
been bold, steadfast, true, unswerving, and have 
striven, in little things as well as great, to do pre- 
cisely what they ought in spite of difficulties, dan- 
gers, shame, or death itself? 

Oh, could you see them now, in the beauty of 
their perfected goodness, in the honors which they 
wear, in the exalted life they live, in the favor of 



Moral Courage, Continued. 233 

God which they enjoy, in the blessedness which 
they feel at present and the prospects which lie be- 
fore them in their future ; methinks, that inspired 
by their success, you would resolve to-day, as 
you have never done before, to maintain your stand 
on the side of God and all that is pure and good, 
whatever it may cost. Be thou faithful unto death, 
saith the Son of God, and I will give thee a crown 
of life ! 



TRUE GREATNESS ACCORDING TO 
CHRIST. 



" At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying — Who 
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? 

" And Jesus called a little child unto him and set him in the 
midst of them, and said — Verily I say unto you, except ye be con- 
verted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as 
this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 
Matt, xviii. 1-4. , 



XII. 

TRUE GREATNESS ACCORDING TO 
CHRIST. 

r I ^HE ambitious views of Christ's disciples as be- 
-*- trayed on more than one occasion, and their 
questions about precedence and personal rewards, 
disclosed the imperfection both of their knowledge 
and their characters. They reasoned among them- 
selves, disputed, strove — as we learn by comparing 
the Evangelists — who should be the greatest, i.e., the 
most honorable and distinguished ; for those things 
were synonymous in their esteem. It appears that 
at length they formally referred the question to 
Jesus for decision. 

The Divine Teacher did decide it : and how 
admirably ! He casts his eyes around, and lo ! a 
little child — at play, perhaps, in the lightness of his 
heart, He has no aspirings. Ambition has not 
been awakened in his bosom. Eminence of place, 
and superiority in any way to others, do not enter 
into any of his dreams. He had rather have his 
hoop and ball than a sceptre, or a diadem. He is 
meek and gentle also. He submits himself to the 



238 True Success in Life. 

will of others, and is willing to be taught. He 
is, in short, the impersonation of simple-hearted 
humility and self-forgetfulness. See ! — says the 
Saviour ! there is the image of true greatness ! 
Then he called the child to him and set him in the 
midst, and said — Verily I say unto you, except ye 
be converted and become as little children, ye shall 
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever 
therefore, shall humble himself as this little child — 
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 

In this striking manner the Redeemer of men 
taught the entire erroneousness of worldly views of 
greatness — those views which have generally pre- 
vailed and now generally prevail among mankind. 
These make it to consist very much in what is out- 
ward and wholly adventitious ; so that it is gained, 
or lost, according as the world may smile or frown, 
as the restless tide of popular favor ebbs and flows, 
and as eminence of power or of station are attained 
or given up. It is altogether another kind of great- 
ness which Christ presents ; an idea as far superior to 
that which he exposes, as the views of truth and 
moral virtue which on other occasions he unfolds 
are above the common theories and codes of men. 
It is in a broader view that he contemplates the na- 
ture of man and the ends of his existence, and by 



True Greatness According to Christ. 239 

a higher standard that he estimates his merits, than 
any which enter into the thoughts of the world in 
general. On this subject, as on all subjects, he 
speaks as the faithful and true witness ; and it is 
our highest wisdom to ponder deeply on his testi- 
mony. What is true greatness in the view of Jesus 
Christ ? Let us give our attention to this question. 

It is plain that true greatness, in Christ's judg- 
ment, is something that is inherent and not acciden- 
tal. It consists in other words in the possession of 
certain attributes or qualities and not in occupying 
any particular position of eminence or considera- 
tion. 

The contrary, it is hardly necessary to say, is true - 
of not a little of the greatness of this world. The 
prevailing sentiment among mankind has been that 
he is to be esteemed the greatest who makes him- 
self most prominent in position, in power, and influ- 
ence, among his fellow men. This was clearly the 
impression on the minds of the disciples when they 
came to ask the opinion or decision of their master. 
It is the impression which the political and social 
institutions of a large part of the civilized world are 
fitted to produce and to perpetuate. Under these 
institutions, in many countries, men are born to 
greatness. They inherit it, as something which is 



240 True Success in Life. 

as little of a personal attribute as the estates which 
descend to them in like manner. They are kings, 
princes, nobles, and the like, and receive homage 
from their conventional inferiors, as a matter of pre- 
scriptive and unquestioned right. They are great, 
not because they possess such and such qualities, 
but because fortune has placed them in such and 
such a condition in life. Even where there is no 
such thing as hereditary eminence — as among our- 
selves, for example — there are still certain artificial 
distinctions which become established in society ; 
and by means of which the relative consequence of 
individuals is determined. Those who are able to 
attain to a certain standing in respect to wealth, dis- 
play or fashion, or who have the advantage of others 
in personal appearance and accomplishments, or who 
have the talent and address to render themselves 
popular with the many, become the great, in the 
common opinion ; and are the objects of respect to 
some and of envy to others, without regard to any- 
thing in them which is especially meritorious. 
Hence it is these incidental things — these things 
that are wholly external to the man himself — which 
are naturally the grand objects of human desire. 
By these it is that the many measure success in life. 
For the possession of these it is, chiefly, that ambi- 



True Greatness According to Christ. 241 

tion aspires and tasks itself. For these it is that 
the hearts of multitudes are restless, and that their 
days are spent in anxiety and toil. They must be 
great or count their lives a failure ; and these they 
suppose are the necessary means. 

But look at the words of Christ. You find not 
the remotest allusion to any of these circumstantial 
things. He directs attention to the inherent dispo- 
sitions of the man. You see at once from his lan- 
guage, brief and general as it is, that he does not 
recognize at all either as conditions or elements of 
greatness, those things which the world in general 
regard as essentially constituting it or at least as 
inseparable from it. It is what the individual is, not 
where he is, that Christ regards as the criterion by 
which to estimate him. Whether he is on a throne, 
or in a dungeon ; whether he has names and titles, 
or is buried in obscurity ; whether he rolls in afflu- 
ence, or dwells in the home of want ; whether the 
world caress and idolize him, or load him with con- 
tempt and cast out his name as evil — these are, in the 
Saviour's judgment, things wholly immaterial ; with- 
out any bearing on the question of his greatness. 
It was not difficult for Jesus Christ, as it is for us, 
in his estimate of character, thus to separate the 

merely casual from the real. He could contemplate 
16 



242 Trite Success zu Life. 

man with a perfect apprehension of his constitution 
as an intelligent, responsible being ; as capable of 
consorting with angels on the one hand, or with 
devils on the other; of bearing the fair image of 
the divine Creator, or the hateful image of the 
prince of darkness. He could, and did, place man 
before him without reference to the present, or, in- 
deed, to any limits of time, as standing on the vast 
arena of an existence essentially eternal. And, 
finally, regarding him in such a light, He could, and 
did, weigh him, without the slightest reference to 
human standards, in the balances of everlasting 
truth. In a judgment thus made up, the imperial 
purple and v courtly adulation of a Caesar avail no 
more than the rags and beggary of a Lazarus. 
Meanness and insignificance, though enthroned, are 
meanness and insignificance still ; and nobleness 
and grandeur are still nobleness and grandeur, 
though pining in unrelieved necessity. In such a 
judgment, greatness is so absolutely a personal, in- 
herent and essential quality of the being, that no 
imaginable change of circumstances can add to or 
diminish it. It is so that Christ regards it. 

But true greatness, in the view of Christ, is not 
only an inherent, it is also a moral attribute. The 
word great, primarily and literally, relates to ma- 



True Greatness According to Christ. 243 

terial objects which have extension and visible form. 
Thus we speak of a great edifice, a great moun- 
tain, a great globe. These objects, called great, 
powerfully impress our senses, either in themselves, 
or in comparison with others. Hence we come to 
use the word figuratively to denote that which 
effects us strongly, without reference to the idea 
of literal size : as when we say, a great thought, a 
great principle, a great discourse. 

In this sense it is that we employ the term or- 
dinarily when we speak of human greatness. We 
observe that a man possesses certain characteristics 
which strike us forcibly, and we call those charac- 
teristics great, and pronounce the possessor a great 
man. It is because the distinctions of birth, rank, 
power, wealth, and similar things, impress us 
with a certain measure of reverence and awe, that 
we come to consider them as elements of greatness. 
It is on this principle that men have been styled 
great when they have exhibited decided superiority 
to others in any important respect : for example, in 
force of intellect or in energy of action. Superioritv 
and greatness have been supposed to be synony- 
mous. 

If anything which has no moral quality could 
constitute true greatness it would certainly be Intel- 



244 True Success in Life. 

lectual and active power. The efforts of a master 
mind are always imposing. We feel instinctively 
impressed in the presence of such a mind. We 
cannot look at a Plato while he grapples with the 
profoundest speculative problems and solves them 
by analysis of the nicest shades of thought ; or at 
a Newton or La Place reaching the laws of univer- 
sal nature by a bold and original generalization and 
demonstrating them by the unerring processes of 
geometry ; or at a Dante, or Milton gathering the 
materials of his poetic web from heaven, earth and 
hell, and weaving in to adorn the fabric the riches 
of polished learning, and not feel that there is a 
vastness in man's capacities which it is amazing to 
contemplate. Nor can we turn over the pages of 
history which record the illustrious actions of those 
who have conspicuously figured as heroes in the 
great drama of this world's affairs, without being 
forcibly impressed with a similar conviction ; and 
historians, and orators and poets, have abundantly 
written and spoken and sung, of the grandeur of hu- 
man powers and the dignity of human achievements. 
All this may be admitted. But the divine Teacher 
does not allow that the possession of exalted pow r - 
ers, and the performance of extraordinary actions, 
which are not of a moral nature, can of themselves 



Trice Greatness According to Christ. 245 

make one truly great. He says, on the contrary, to 
sages and statesmen, philosophers and poets, and 
the whole catalogue of men of great renown — Ex- 
cept ye be converted and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven ! He no- 
where denies, indeed, either directly or by impli- 
cation, that man's capacities are truly noble, or that 
many of his deeds are worthy of the admiration 
with which they are regarded. He would doubtless 
have readily admitted these things if he had had oc- 
casion. But his wisdom clearly saw that it is not 
the possession of any gifts bestowed by God, how- 
ever rich, nor the performance of any actions, how- 
ever worthy in themselves, from worldly motives 
merely, that really ennobles ; but only the cherish- 
ing of such purposes and the exercise of such 
affections within the soul as ally that soul by its 
own deliberate act to God and goodness unal- 
terably and forever. Looking at man as a moral 
being and an heir of immortality, he knew 
that nothing short of such an alliance could 
save him from even sinking ultimately to shame 
and everlasting contempt ; and he could only re- 
gard that as true greatness which would ennoble 
and dignify the intelligent soul for the whole of its 
endless being. Was he not right in this ? Who in 



246 True Success in Life. 

such a view of human nature and its destinies can 
question the justice of his views ? How prepos- 
terous to call anything great, however imposing 
and brilliant it may appear at present, which one 
may possess and yet sink to the debasement and 
ruin of a demon ? How absurd were it to deny 
that a Howard, wandering alone and weary from 
place to place, without one outward badge of honor, 
or one of the distinctions which are most regarded 
by the world, was greater beyond comparison than a 
Nero, with the world subject to his word and claim- 
ing and receiving the homage of a God ! It was im- 
possible with such an understanding as the Saviour 
had of the moral nature and relations of mankind 
and of the principles by which character should be 
determined, that he should have decided otherwise 
than that • the greatness necessarily involves the 
love and the pursuit of goodness. Thus only can 
man be permanently exalted ; thus only can he 
answer the end of his existence ; thus only there- 
fore can he be truly great. 

It is yet another characteristic of true greatness, 
according to the Saviour's judgment, that it is disin- 
terested in its aims. It supposes, in other words, 
forgetfulness of self in devotion .to duty and to truth. 
The greatness of this world is idolatrous of self. 



Trtte Greatness According to Christ. 247 

Its grand object is to maintain its own dignity and 
effect its own advancement. Is it the greatness of 
hereditary rank and title ? How little solicitude 
does it feel to meet the high responsibilities of its 
position, in comparison with its anxiety to secure to 
itself a proper degree of consideration and defer- 
ence from others ! Is it the greatness of eminent 
political station, or of extraordinary courage in the 
field ? How ready it is to jeopardize great in- 
terests, to trample on the rights of the feeble and 
on the great principles of moral duty, to shed a 
brother's blood in single combat, or to devastate na- 
tions and water them with blood and tears, in order 
to avenge its offended pride and guard its imagined 
honor from a stain ! Is it a greatness based on 
wealth and sustained by fashionable display ? What 
constant concern does it feel about appearances ; 
what dread lest others should outshine it in splen- 
dor of style, or surpass it in punctiliousness of fash- 
ion or gorgeousness of equipage ! Is it intellectual 
greatness ? What jealousy and even hatred toward 
rival genius, what sensitiveness in respect to its 
own place on the scale of merit, w r hat desire to turn 
attention on itself even at the expense of others, 
does it too generally exhibit ! Whatever its partic- 
ular form, mere worldly greatness makes it its great 



248 True Success in Life. 

concern, its constant object of solicitude and toil, 
to take care of itself ; to save its own dignity from 
decay and downfall ! 

But observe how different that greatness which 
Jesus Christ acknowledges as such : Whosoever 
shall humble himself as a little child, the same is 
truly great ! This is a greatness which sets up no 
pretensions, claims no precedence, demands no ob- 
sequiousness, looks with no envy on the excel- 
lencies of others, because it thinks not of itself but 
keeps its eye steadily on duty. Instead of listening 
to catch the applauses of admiring observers, it is 
habitually hearkening to the voice of conscience ! 
Its concern is not chiefly how men will judge it but 
how God will judge it. It estimates itself not by 
comparison with others, or by any human standards, 
but by the requirements of God's law, whence it de- 
rives the ideal of absolute perfection ; and so it 
sees ample reason to think humbly of itself, and to 
waste no time or thought in the effort to exhibit it- 
self to observation for the sake of praise. Does it 
perform noble actions ? It performs them because 
they are noble, and not because they will be com- 
mended. Does it aspire to eminent virtues ? It 
is because they are intrinsically lovely in its view ; 
and because their attainment is urged by a sense of 



True Greatness According to Christ. 249 

duty ; and not because the possession of them will 
make itself an object of admiration. In short, 
with a meek and lowly spirit, it devotes itself to 
goodness simply for goodness' sake. If men ap- 
prove, it is not puffed up. If they frown, it is calm, 
steadfast and untroubled. How worthy of real re- 
verence, how divine, is such a greatness ! How im- 
measurably above that of which minstrels have 
chiefly sung and historians written and orators de- 
claimed ! It is the greatness of the Son of God 
Himself. While He taught it in His precepts He 
exhibited it most illustriously in His life. 

Finally, that which Jesus Christ declares to 
be true greatness is imperishable. It is, He 
tells us, greatness in the kingdom of heaven ; and 
all that pertains to that kingdom is destined to en- 
dure forever. Since it is, as we have seen, an in- 
herent attribute or quality of the soul, it must be as 
indestructible as the soul itself. All other great- 
ness dies. Where now is the greatness so called, the 
merely secular greatness, which in past ages occu- 
pied the attention of men and filled the high places 
of the earth ? Where is the pomp and majesty of 
kings, the dignity of senators and nobles, the sagac- 
ity of statesmen, the might of conquerors, the light 
of genius, the magic power of art, the witchery of 



250 True Success in Life. 

eloquence, and the acuteness of science and philos- 
ophy, to which mankind have done homage in by- 
gone centuries ? They are buried ; and that not 
only in the graves of men, but of states and empires 
also ; gone down into an oblivion which will grow 
deeper and deeper till not one trace of all is left be- 
hind ! We meditate among the crumbling monu- 
ments by which its progress to utter forgetfulness 
has been retarded for a little, but of these too the 
last ruin will at length have disappeared. The 
same destiny awaits all the similar forms of great- 
ness which awaken the ambition and command the 
respect of the human race at the present day. 

But when will the greatness of Moses and Elijah 
and Daniel and Paul be buried in oblivion ? When 
shall that of martyrs and confessors who rather than 
prove false to conscience and to God, cheerfully 
gave their bodies to the flame, have past away ? 
When shall that of Luther and of Knox have per- 
ished ? When will that of the innumerable multitude 
in every station in private life, who have conquered 
themselves, subdued the world beneath their feet 
through faith, and trained themselves for glory and 
immortality, have ceased to be ? The righteous shall 
be held in everlasting remembrance. Their names 
are inscribed on the sapphire pillars of the eternal 



True Greatness According to Christ. 251 

temple of God. Death, that lays all secular greatness 
in the dust, only completes the measure of their ex- 
altation and makes them kings and priests to the 
Most High. They shall shine as the brightness of 
the firmament and as the stars forever and ever ! To 
be elevated without the fear of any fall ; to be asso- 
ciated with principalities and powers, and all that is 
noble and glorious in the universe in the pursuit of 
the highest ends ; to be in the possession of imper- 
ishable honors, and in the certain prospect of ever- 
lasting progress : this is greatness that deserves the 
name. This is true greatness in Jesus Christ's es- 
teem. It is greatness in the kingdom of God. It 
is the only real greatness. 

Note then the delusion under which a large por- 
tion of mankind are laboring. To be great is a ruling 
passion in the human heart ; and to gratify this de- 
sire to rank with the high and honorable is with 
multitudes the grand labor of existence. But what 
kind of greatness are they striving to obtain ? 
Simply that which shall elevate them just for the 
present above their fellows and obtain for them the 
transient applause of men ; which shall elevate them 
in condition merely, and not in the scale of being. 
But a child is still a child though he be placed upon 
a pedestal ; and littleness is still littleness, contrive 



252 True Success in Life. 

whatever means you will to make it look like great- 
ness. No wonder that the world is full of disap- 
pointed hearts. No wonder that so many who have 
contrived to gain a little distinction for a while are 
seen at last precipitated from their eminence, and 
are heard exclaiming in the bitter despondency of 
those who have lost their all : 

" Farewell — a long farewell — to all our greatness ! " 

It must be so. It cannot be otherwise so long as 
men are willing to be duped by the false notions of 
this world into the chase of mere phantoms, and re- 
fuse to learn of Christ what is really ennobling. 
A life spent in the pursuit of a mere fictitious 
greatness is indeed a melancholy failure. I wish 
that I could produce a deep impression of this truth 
on the minds of every young man and woman now 
addressed. I would that your eyes may be open to 
see the dangerous illusion by which false greatness 
is made to appear attractive to you, while the beauty 
of the true is hidden from your sight. I desire that 
your hearts may feel,while your understandings ad- 
mit, that whatever the world generally may think, 



-A Christian is the highest style of man ; " 



It is hard, I know, with the whole spirit and prac- 



True Greatness According to Christ, 253 

tice of society against you, to feel that it is so with 
a full conviction. It is hard, while the multitude 
around you despise the greatness which begins in 
brokenness of heart before the Cross, and includes 
self-crucifixion and a life of faith and holiness — to 
have a living assurance in the soul that Christ has 
spoken truly, when he has taught that this is not 
merely the highest but the only real greatness. It 
is hard perhaps not to be driven into being ashamed 
of that which in truth is the highest glory of your 
being. 

But come up, my brother, my friend, let me in- 
vite you, from the hazy and distorting dimness of 
this earth to the hights of clear, collected, solemn 
thought. You possess a moral nature. This na- 
ture is immortal. This life is but a moment of your 
being. Scenes of existence, vast and high, lie be- 
fore you in the future. Your chief relations are 
with the infinite — with God and with eternity. 
From this elevated position look abroad over the 
mighty field of being on which you are destined to 
expatiate forever, and then say what the petty dis- 
tinctions and the merely fictitious greatness of this 
low earth, this brief span of years, are worth in 
comparison with the grand distinction of a renewed 
and holy heart — a heart in love with goodness ; and 



254 True Success in Life. 

a sure title to the riches and honors and dignities 
of an incorruptible inheritance in God ! That only 
is a truly successful earthly life in which these 
things are secured. How will the empty pomps, 
the fading vanities, the perishing honors and pos- 
sessions of this world appear, from those heights of 
glory and of blessedness to which the humble, holy 
soul will have ascended, when a thousand ages shall 
have rolled over it in the world of light ! Let the 
worldly despise the saying if they will, it fell from 
the lips of Eternal truth ; whosoever shall humble 
himself as a little child, shall be great in the king- 
dom of heaven ! His life will be recognized as a 
grand success by God and the high intelligences 
that stand about his throne. 



CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AN AID TO 
SUCCESS. 



" And God said to Solomon, because this was in thine heart, and 
thou hast not asked riches, wealth or honor, nor the life of thine 
enemies, neither yet hast asked long life ; but hast asked wisdom and 
knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people over whom 
I have made thee king ; wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee ; 
and I will give riches, and wealth, and honor, such as none of the 
kings have that have been before thee, neither shall any after thee 
have the like."— II Chron, I. n, 12. 



XIII. 

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AN AID TO 
SUCCESS. 

T T 7E must suppose that, though made in a dream 
or vision, the answer of Solomon to the of- 
fer on the part of God to give him what he most de- 
sired — his noble wish that above all things he might 
be qualified by the gift of wisdom and knowledge from 
above to meet the high responsibilities of his posi- 
tion — was the real expression of what was uppermost 
in his heart. In his waking thoughts he had looked 
well at his position ; and in his accession to the high 
station of a sovereign, he was not so much attracted 
by its splendors, as he was impressed with the great- 
ness and difficulty of its duties. He felt a sincere 
desire to approve himself to God in the fulfilment of 
the weighty trust committed to him. The result is 
most instructive. Because he sought that first which 
would fit him to discharge the duties of his position ; 
because he made what he owed to God and his fel- 
low-men his chief concern, and subordinated all infe- 
rior and merely personal advantages to this, he had 
i7 



258 Ti'tie Success in Life. 

the high endowments which he asked ; and along 
with these, as an expression of God's approval of his 
conduct — the things which he had justly deemed of 
less importance, were also most abundantly be- 
stowed. 

We fully believe that in this interesting piece of 
history, we have simply one particular illustration or 
example of a great and established principle of the 
divine adminstration in respect to men. It is to be 
taken, we are persuaded, as a general truth, that God 
so exercises his directing power in the providential 
government of this world that those who make it 
their grand aim to please and honor him shall actu- 
ally gain more of the worldly advantages which men 
may lawfully desire than they could have gained by 
seeking these things first of all, and making their 
own pleasure life's chief end. Or, to state the same 
in another way, it is to be regarded as the rule, that 
the surest way to success in the laudable pursuits of 
this life is to put God and duty first, and self and 
our own interests in a subordinate place, in all our 
wishes, thoughts and plans. Hard as it is for most 
people to believe it; ready as so many are to plead 
the pressure of secular employments, in excuse for 
the neglect of their religious obligations, it is cer- 
tainly the fact that a man with given powers and op- 



Christian Character an Aid to Success. 259 

portunity will be the better artisan, the better mer- 
chant, the better statesman, the better scholar, all the 
more likely to attain his ends in every honorable pur- 
suit, for being in truth a godly man, a hearty, genuine 
Christian. Paul asserts this, when he says that god- 
liness hath the promise of the life that now is, as 
well as of that which is to come. Christ himself af- 
firms it when he says, Seek first the kingdom of God 
and the righteousness thereof, and all these things 
shall be added unto you. 

That true Christian character in the case of any 
individual, increases the probability of success in 
the legitimate pursuits of life, appears in the fact 
that it tends effectually to secure the best possible 
condition of all the active powers of the body and 
the mind like. A man who fears God must be a 
temperate man ; a man who puts a check on all 
his appetites and passions ; one who continually 
strives to subject his natural impulses to the whole- 
some rules of virtuous life. This self-control of 
course conduces to the health and vigor both of 
the body and the mind. For want of the self-re- 
straint which a religious life demands, what vast 
numbers become wholly disqualified to act with en- 
ergy in any occupation ! How many in all condi- 
tions of human life, so enervate and impair their 



260 True Success in Life, 

physical and mental energies, by giving the reins 
to appetite, that they are made incapable even of 
attempting, what with due self-government they 
might easily have accomplished ! Who cannot 
think of many a noble youth, gifted by the Creator 
with capacities equal to the very best achievements 
in any sphere of effort, who has disappointed all the 
hopes of those who loved him, and suffered the pangs 
himself of perpetual failure, just for the lack of that 
holy fear of God, which as a moral balance-wheel 
would have saved his admirable powers from the 
waste of irregular and excessive action ! Of course 
no piety can give exemption from disease. But 
just so far as a man is under the influence of a 
sense of religious obligation, will he be held back 
from foolishly bringing it on himself; just so far 
will he naturally be led to the sober, prudent, health- 
ful habits, which are most likely to preserve the 
soundness of his faculties, and to give him power of 
application and endurance. A heart at rest, be- 
cause at peace with itself and with God ; cheerful 
habitually, because warmed with the noblest hopes ; 
unanxious, because sure that its dearest interests 
are secure ; courageous, because relying on divine 
assistance — has it not within itself the elements of 
true and abiding strength. 



Christian Character an Aid to Success. 261 

So again, Christian character that is genuine 
must conduce to success in life — -success that is, in 
all right things — because it supplies the highest and 
most stimulating motives to exertion. It is true that 
there are many worldly motives which act with great 
power upon those who are worldly-minded. Pleas- 
ure makes a strong appeal, when it addresses a sen- 
sual disposition ; and so does wealth, when it offers 
itself to an avaricious spirit, or even to a spirit of ac- 
quisitiveness and enterprise. Thousands have been 
urged to make their way through seas of blood, 
through all sorts of sacrifices and privations, by the 
prospect of honor, fame, or power. In short, there 
are innumerable things which mankind naturally de- 
sire, which have sufficient urgency, as motives to 
move some men to intense activity. 

But after all, even the prospect of gaining the 
means of self-indulgence, or the satisfaction of 
being rich, or learned, or powerful or famous, fails 
to excite vast multitudes to resolute and persevering 
efforts. There is not stimulus enough in any of 
these things to quicken their sluggish natures. 
Besides, they are very apt to be quite unsteady 
in their influence on those who are most suscepti- 
ble. A man who is hot in the chase of a par- 
ticular pleasure, or keen in his desire for wealth, or 



262 True Success in Life. 

power, to-day, will perhaps to-morrow, by some 
sudden change in his own feelings, have only loath- 
ing in thinking of these things. It must, therefore, 
be admitted that those motives which are furnished 
by objects of a merely worldly nature, are not 
adapted to awaken the highest activity of human 
souls, and to sustain it steadily and long. They 
fail to reach the most powerful springs of action. 

But suppose the mind of any person to be 
brought under the power of those great and solemn 
motives which a supreme regard to God supplies. 
Imagine the character of God, especially as it is ex- 
hibited in the New Testament, in the mystery of 
the incarnation and in the affecting scenes of Cal- 
vary, to be clearly comprehended and appreciated 
in the depths of the moral nature. Let there be, 
in the conscience, a lively sense of the obligation of 
the divine law that insists on purity and goodness ; a 
sense of the defilement of sin and a full belief of 
coming judgment and eternal retributions. Is it 
not obvious, on a moment's thought, that here are 
incentives to activity, vastly more weighty in them- 
selves, more steady in their influence on the mind 
and heart, more universal also in their efficacy, than 
any drawn from the lower objects which appeal to 
sense alone, or at least, appeal only to the inferior 



Christian Character an Aid to Success. 263 

instincts and desires of human nature. Ah, yes, a 
godly man — a real Christian — who knows God, who 
loves Him with supreme affection,— and daily lives 
consciously in Him and to Him ; who feels that he 
is not his own but Christ's, and has all the mighty 
solemnities of immortality revealed continually pres- 
ent to his thoughts ; such a man must be admitted 
to feel the pressure of the highest motives which 
can possibly be conceived to do his very utmost 
with the time, the opportunities and talents w T hich 
have been entrusted to him. That this is not more 
strikingly illustrated in the daily lives of all religious 
men, is because there is so much of defective Chris- 
tian character. 

It is likewise true that while it gives the best 
condition of one's powers, and the highest motives 
to exertion, a truly religious spirit is likely to lead 
to a wise choice of means and plans for the attain- 
ment of success in the worthy pursuits of life. A 
very large proportion of the failures and disap- 
pointments which occur, arise from attempting in- 
judicious things ; or as often perhaps, of attempt- 
ing very proper and practicable things in an inju- 
dicious way. It is not to be supposed that these 
errors can be avoided altogether. To human in- 
firmitv, they must be to some extent inevitable. 



264 True Success in Life. 

But why do men misjudge ? In a majority of cases, 
probably, because they suffer themselves to be bi- 
assed by inclination, instead of looking impartially 
at the naked truth. If the question, in any case, 
were simply what is duty, what course ought I to 
pursue, it would be comparatively simple. But one 
who has not learned to act from a supreme regard 
to the will of God in all things, finds it an exceed- 
ingly difficult and complicated thing to ascertain 
just how this or that particular step will affect his 
convenience or his pleasure, how far it may accord 
with cherished wishes in respect to other things, 
and bear on the whole circle of his interests. 

A man who feels himself a servant of God on 
the other hand, has this settled at the outset in his 
mind ; that whether pleasant or unpleasant, whether 
convenient or inconvenient, the way of right, of duty, 
as determined by the rules which God has given, 
will prove in the end the best way. He will wish 
therefore, and will earnestly endeavor, to put all 
personal predilections, as far as possible aside. 
Not what he wishes to do, but what he is bound to 
do, is with him the question to be settled. He has 
not then to enter into anxious calculations of ten- 
dencies and consequences ; he has simply to ascer- 
tain what course, according to the light he has, will 



Christian Character an Aid to Success. 265 

be most in accordance with God's will. It is far 
more easy to settle this, in ordinary cases, than to 
judge of mere expediencies ; and of course, in so 
doing there is far less danger of mistake. The best 
of men even, will not indeed either actually be nor 
pretend to be infallible in judgment. But can 
there be any doubt, that while to a good man, the 
question as to the course to be pursued will usually 
be more simple, there will also be a great advan- 
tage in the calmness, the deliberation, and the free- 
dom from mere impulse, which may be expected to 
characterize his conclusions. 

Nor is this all. A man whose heart is right with 
God will of course ask, and so far as he asks rightly, 
will receive divine direction, in determining his 
course. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He 
will direct thy paths. If any man lack wisdom, let 
him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and 
without upbraiding, and it shall be given him. These 
are the promises which the Scriptures give in behalf 
of God. Skepticism may smile, and welcome, at 
the idea that the great God, who holds the illimita- 
ble universe in his hand, will make it his care to 
give to you or me the guidance which we need, and 
humbly ask, in all the little steps in life on which our 
success and happiness depends. She cannot prove, 



2(56 Trite Success in Life. 

however, with all her self-complacency, that the God 
of the covenant will not fulfil his gracious promise, 
given in Christ to every believing soul, to do this 
very thing. The steps of a good man, it is divinely 
said, are ordered by the Lord ; and who shall dare 
assert, that he who habitually seeks and enjoys the 
divine direction, is not, on that account, the more 
likely to act wisely, in all his every-day affairs, even 
down to the most ordinary arrangements of his bus- 
iness. 

It is still further to be added, that a man whose 
honest aim it is to live and act in the fear of God 
and according to his will, may reasonably expect 
that his efforts will be crowned with the manifest 
blessing of God's Providence. It was certainly so 
in the case of the youthful King of Israel. Along 
with the wisdom to discharge his duty he was put in 
possession of everything, of a worldly nature, which 
could conduce to the magnificence and glory of his 
reign. It was not, on the one hand, by any happy 
accident that the tide of unexampled prosperity 
poured in upon him. Nor, on the other, was there 
anything miraculous in the success which followed 
all his steps. That Providence, without which not a 
sparrow falleth, so shaped the course of things, in 
its invisible march, as to fulfil the divine promise to 



Christian Character an Aid to Success, 267 

the letter. I will give thee riches, and wealth, and 
honor, such as none of the Kings have had be- 
fore thee, neither shall any after thee have the like. 
The general prediction or pledge is likewise made 
by the sacred poet in relation to the godly man, that 
— He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of 
water, that bringeth forth his fruit in due season ; 
his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he 
doeth shall prosper. A yet higher authority, with 
similar poetic coloring, also teaches the same doc- 
trine. Doth God so clothe the grass of the field, and 
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
faith ? Wherefore be not anxious what ye shall eat, 
nor what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful 
mind. Shall the words of the Lord Jesus be dis- 
puted ? 

We believe there is altogether a wrong impres- 
sion on this point in the minds of many ; an im- 
pression alike at variance with the divine promises 
and with experience. Because God has not engaged 
to give, and does not give to those who serve him, 
unconditional and invariable prosperity in the pres- 
ent life ; because He sometimes sees that disap- 
pointments and reverses are needful in order to in- 
crease their holiness and therefore sends them, it 
is hastily and unwarrantably concluded that, other 



268 True Success in Life. 

things being equal, a good man has no more reason 
to expect the blessing of Providence on his exer- 
tions, than a bad man. But this view is equally 
against reason and against a multitude of explicit 
divine promises. It is taking what are really the 
exceptions, and converting them into the rule. If 
God does indeed delight to give his people bless- 
ings, as the Lord Jesus plainly taught; if his Provi- 
dential agency in all things be not a fancy merely ; 
if prayer for guidance and for the favor of his Prov- 
idence be not an unmeaning and vain thing ; then 
we are bound to believe unhesitatingly, that the man 
who pleases God, who trusts His care, and daily, 
and with right affections, asks his blessing, does, as 
the rule, receive divine assistance in his lawful un- 
dertakings, and is the more prosperous and success- 
ful in them for that reason. 

Why should it not be so ? This view of the case 
is certainly most rational. God in the riches of his 
grace, has brought you into a state of peace with 
him — taught you to love him — through the Gospel 
of his son. You now have in him a Father, and he 
owns in you a child. Your love to him, by making 
you a virtuous and sober and harmoniously devel- 
oped man, makes you all the more capable of acting 
well. In that love, you find the highest motives to 



Christian CJiaracter an Aid to Success. 269 

the best employment of your powers. Your wish to 
be approved of him, inclines you to ask simply after 
duty, in the forming of your plans, and in the choos- 
ing of your means of executing them ; and to solicit 
the guidance of eternal wisdom in the whole. What 
then can appear more reasonable, than that the God 
you serve, and to whom you commit yourself and 
all your interests, with a humble reliance on his 
goodness, should smile upon the labor of your hands, 
and make you, ordinarily, far more successful in it v 
than you could have been if living without his love 
within your heart ? What room is there to doubt, 
that — making full allowance for special exceptions — 
the godly man may count on this, that his godli- 
ness shall certainly on the whole conduce to his ad- 
vancement and success, in all useful and honorable 
pursuits, instead of proving an embarrassment and 
hindrance. 

Let it be particularly observed, that it is not at 
all insisted, that success in the proper avocations of 
this life, is the chief reward of piety. Still less, of 
course, do I wish to make the impression, that any 
one may fitly propose it to himself to serve God as a 
means of gaining his worldly ends. This is indeed 
in terms a contradiction. To think of serving God 
for any other reason then because he deserves our 



270 True Success in Life. 

service, and we are bound on this account alone to 
render it, is to think of committing ourselves to a 
miserable hypocrisy. A genuine piety can neither 
be originated, nor be nourished, by any selfish cal- 
culations. It is the spontaneous devotion of a heart 
that delights in God considered in himself. 

But this is the great lesson of our theme. It 
shows conclusively the utter futility and falsehood 
of the plea which so many are continually making, 
that they cannot serve and honor God in attending 
to the demands of religion because they have so much 
else to do ; because they have such a pressure of 
lawful, necessary business on their hands. The 
meaning of this plea is, of course, that if the requisite 
amount of time were given to the claims of God and 
of religion, this would necessarily prove a hindrance 
to the successful prosecution of the proper business 
which life imposes. The view which we have taken 
of the matter makes it plain that it would not prove 
a hindrance ; that to put religious duty first, as 
something which must not be neglected and worldly 
duties in a subordinate and secondary place, is not 
only the right order, but the order which will best 
ensure efficient action in worldly things themselves ; 
and that to neglect God and the duties of religion, 
is to lose an important aid to success in any lawful 



Christian Character an Aid to Success, 271 

sphere of action. This certainly is a lesson worthy 
to be remembered and reflected on ; and there are 
ample facts, by way of commentary, which will read- 
ily occur. 

Suppose, for example, you ask any of those who 
are now in middle life about the companions of their 
childhood. A hundred of these rise at once before 
the eye of memory the moment your question is pro- 
posed. Among them were many gifted and high- 
hearted ones, souls of bright promise and fair hopes. 
Where are they now? How has it gone with them 
in the fortunes of their lives ? How many of them 
have failed wholly to accomplish anything worthy of 
their powers ! Why have they failed ? How did it 
happen ? One failed through indolence. A sense 
of duty to his God would have stirred him up to action. 
Another failed by keeping evil company. A religious 
spirit would have rendered that company distasteful. 
Another wasted his fine health and powers in giving 
way to appetite and passion. The fear of God would 
have kept him temperate and virtuous. xAmother 
came to nothing but idle scheming and running from 
one thing to another. If he had been living to please 
God, and had daily asked his guidance, he would 
have acted with more steadiness and discretion. Re- 
ligion would probably have saved them all from the 



272 True Success in Life. 

rocks on which their hopes were wrecked, and made 
them prosperous and useful in the world. It is in 
fact the few, comparatively, who do succeed in life 
without the happy influences of piety to restrain 
and to direct them ; and though religious men may 
sometimes fail for other causes, they never fail be- 
cause of their religion. 

No, if you will refuse to render to God the ser- 
vice which he claims, to desire and seek his favor 
and blessing first and most of all, do not attempt to 
excuse yourselves with so poor an apology, as that to 
be religious would stand in the way of a due attention 
to your business, and endanger your success in life. 
If this were so, it would not really excuse you. It is 
not true, however, but exactly the reverse of truth. 
It was to the putting of his duty first, and his grati- 
fications and distinctions afterward, that the wise 
son of David owed the unequalled glory that ren- 
dered his name the very symbol of magnificent pros- 
perity to all ages of the world. 

What, then, is the conclusion to which we are 
brought at last? Is it not clearly this, that to make 
the attainment of the wealth, and honors, and 
distinctions of this world the primary object of de- 
sire and of pursuit is really flagrant folly. No one 
of us has ever doubted probably that it was wisdom 



Christian Character an Aid to Success. 273 

as regards the future life to be religious, or in other 
words, to acknowledge God and serve him. But 
clearly it is not less wise for this life also. See then 
what you are doing, you who are putting worldly ob- 
jects first and making them indeed the only objects 
of your care. You are foolish for both worlds ! 
Eternal life you are sure to lose if you persist in 
your present course ; and you will at least run great 
risk of losing the best enjoyment of the good things 
of the present. Ah, is it not an obvious, as well as 
a painful truth, that forgetfulness of God is a strange 
infatuation ? that the God of this world hath blinded 
the minds of those who believe not? 

You who are young — young men and young 
women — and have brilliant visions of coming years 
before you, I pray you prize most, and ask as God's 
best gift, the wisdom and knowledge which will 
enable you to meet the high responsibilities of 
your mortal being. As you press on in the 
hurry of life's race, with all its prizes in your view, 
remember what the Holy Saviour so emphatically 
said — Seek first the kingdom of God and the right- 
eousness thereof, and all these things shall be added 
unto you. Whoever shall do this, will find to his 
unutterable joy that God will give him, also, the 

riches and the glory of a kingdom outshining infi- 
18 



274 True Success in Life. 

nitely that of Solomon, the kingdom of the greater 
son of David, whom David in spirit also called his 
Lord. Let no one be willing to commit the folly of 
putting shadows in the place of substance ; of choos- 
ing the transitory good of earth to the loss of the 
time-enduring good which is offered in God and 
Heaven ! 



THE DESIRE OF TRUE GLORY A CHRIS- 
TIAN AFFECTION. 



" And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them." — 
John xvii. 22. 



XIV. 

THE DESIRE OF TRUE GLORY A CHRIS- 
TIAN AFFECTION, 

HHE desire for glory is one of the most constant 
-*: and profound desires of the human soul. It 
exhibits itself very early in life. It appears not only 
among the more elevated of mankind, the educated 
and refined, but among the lowest, among barbari- 
ans even, to a greater or less extent. 

Like other characteristics of the race, this is 
worthy to be studied. How shall we account for it ? 
Is it a good or an evil affection ? Is it a necessary 
result of the constitution of our being ? Or is it one 
of the pernicious fruits of that depravity which has 
ensued on the apostasy, and universal because the 
depravity is so ? These are questions that naturally 
arise, and are of great practical interest ; for every 
reflecting and conscientious person must desire to 
know whether this appetite, which he feels within 
him, should be indulged, and cultivated even, or on 
the contrary, should be repressed, and if possible ex- 
terminated from the heart. 



278 True Success {71 Life. 

It will be found, if the subject be carefully con- 
sidered, that there is no reason to regard the desire 
for glory— apart from any excess or misdirection of 
it— as originating in that derangement and perver- 
sion of our moral nature which is the consequence 
of sin. That it is on the contrary instinctive — a de- 
sire provided for in the original constitution of the 
soul, and within definable limits, innocent and 
proper— is clear from the undeniable fact that it is 
recognized as such, and is appealed to, and promised 
due gratification, in the Scriptures. This both in the 
Old Testament and the New. The Lord will give 
grace and glory, wrote the Psalmist. Who will 
render, says Paul, glory, honor, and peace to every 
man that worketh good. It is enough to add that 
Christ represents himself as having personally re- 
ceived an inheritance of glory, and conveyed to his 
disciples by promise the right to share it with him. 

What, then, is this natural, this universal, this 
divinely set forth object of desire? What do we 
mean by glory ? What do we really desire, when we 
desire it? 

I suppose that most persons have some idea of 
what glory is when they use this familiar word, and 
especially when they are conscious of desiring the 
thing it represents. But is it not, at least in the case 



The Desire of True Glory y ete. 279 

of many, a very vague and imperfect notion that 
they have ? one that they would find it difficult dis- 
tinctly to express ? Let us get a clear conception 
of it if we can. 

The primary and most literal meaning of the 
word glory appears to be splendor, or brightness, as 
of a luminous body. Paul uses it in this sense 
when he says that there is one glory of the sun, an- 
other glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. 
Peter employs it in the same sense when he says 
that there came a voice from the excellent glory 
to Christ. 

But when we speak of glory as pertaining to a 
person or to character, or action, it will be perceived, 
on a moment's reflection, that we use the word 
in an analogical or figurative sense. The mind first 
conceives of an admirable person, character, or 
deed, as invested with an ideal radiance as appear- 
ing to the imagination and thought of the beholder 
to be brilliant by its excellence, as the sun appears to 
the eye to be brilliant by its light ; and then it calls 
this brilliancy — this ideal splendor — glory. Then 
further, and still more remotely from the primitive 
meaning, the admiration and praise which a person 
or character conceived as shining by its merit, calls 
forth from those who see it, the applause and re- 



280 True Success in Life. 

nown which it commands, is also characterized as 
glory. 

Glory, therefore, in relation to a person, is either 
excellence ' itself, that which awakens admiration ; 
or the expression of admiration awakened ; the 
commendation, the eclat, which is accorded it. For 
example ; when we say that the disinterestedness 
of Washington was his glory, we mean that this ex- 
cellence in his character made him appear illustri- 
ous ; was fitted to call forth towards him the hom- 
age of the world. When we say that Washington, 
as the father of his country, has attained the high- 
est glory, we mean that he has had accorded to 
him the highest applause and veneration of man- 
kind ; that the appreciation and the renown which 
are due to exalted worth have been bestowed on 
him by the world. So then the root of true glory 
is the desert of admiration ; the blossom and the 
fruit, are the just and truthful expressions of ad- 
miration merited. We may use the term in any 
given case more specially in reference to the one, or 
to the other ; but both enter into the complete con- 
ception of what real glory is. It is, to state the 
whole in short, the deserving and the receiving of 
the praise of exalted virtue. This is glory, in well 
defined idea. 



The Desire of True Glory, etc. 281 

It is plain, then, that the desire of true glory, so 
far as it may be simply an instinctive and constitu- 
tional desire, is innocent and proper ; and that 
when by knowledge and choice, it becomes a volun- 
tary and deliberately indulged desire it is a posi- 
tively virtuous affection. For who will question 
that the desire to deserve the approbation of God 
and of all the good, and to enjoy the expression of 
it, implies a right moral disposition in the soul ? 
If real glory is something morally good, to desire it 
intelligently and freely must be morally virtuous 
and right. Were it not so, Christ, we may be cer- 
tain, would not have presented it to his followers 
with an evident design to excite them to desire it. 
If glory is one of the rewards of the divine king- 
dom, one of the essential elements of the blessed- 
ness of Christ himself in Heaven as well as of those 
whom he will save, every Christian heart not only 
may be, but ought to be habitually filled with aspir- 
ations after it. 

But a difficulty is perhaps already arising in 
some minds in relation to this view. What, it will 
be asked, are we to think of the desire of glory as 
we see it commonly exhibited among mankind ? Is 
that appetite for praise, for celebrity, for the ap- 
plauses of the world, for high enrolment and per- 



282 True Success in Life. 

petuated name on the records of mankind, which 
fills so many souls, and especially souls of the high- 
est order, with perpetual restlessness and craving, a 
virtuous appetite ? Is it anything more than selfish- 
ness going out after something that shall serve as 
fuel for its ever-burning flame ? If the passion for 
glory has stimulated genius to creations which man- 
kind through ages have extolled ; if it has produced 
poets and orators and heroes and statesmen who 
have contributed to the embellishment of social life, 
and the elevation of manners and of civil institu- 
tions ; has it not also urged on those of whom it has 
had possession to the commission of the greatest 
crimes ? Has it not been the nurse of envy and 
ambition and hate ? Has it not moved individual 
men to hostile combats without occasion, and na- 
tions to bloody wars without necessity or justice ? 
Is not the passion for glory, judged by its fruits, the 
very passion of that arch-angel fallen, who deeming it 

" Better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven," 

would sacrifice the good of all the universe if he 
might elevate himself ? 

To this view of the case it may be answered — 
that it is undoubtedly the truth that what is com- 
monly called the passion for glory, and has impelled 



The Desire of True Glory } etc. 283 

men to deeds which if often in a sense great and 
splendid, have been as often greatly and splendid- 
ly wicked and destructive, must be set down as 
mainly an evil impulse. Its fruits must be allowed 
to decide its character. But then we further say, 
that this inordinate and reckless passion which 
passes under the name of a desire of glory, is not 
after all the true, but is a corruption and a counter- 
feit. It is neither the innocent constitutional im- 
pulse God implanted, nor this elevated and directed 
by right principle and feeling. In sinful man all the 
implanted instincts are more or less depraved, and 
rendered inordinate and irregular in their action, 
and this as well as others. Remember, we have 
shown that true glory consists in the deserving and 
receiving the rewards of exalted virtue. The true 
desire of glory then is the desire to deserve and re- 
ceive the rewards of exalted virtue. But it is plain 
that w T hat passes with the world as a desire for glory 
is quite another thing. It is not a desire to do any- 
thing, or to be anything, for the sake of being vir- 
tuous and good. It is the desire of a selfish heart 
to gratify itself with applause, admiration, fame ; to 
gain these things because they feed its vanity and 
pride, and minister to self-esteem. It is the desire 
of distinction for the sake of superiority to others ; 



284 True Success in Life. 

for renown as in itself a good. Here is the differ- 
ence, a very wide one, between false glory and true 
glory. The one consists in being regarded and 
treated as if possessed of exalted virtue ; the other, 
as we have said, in actually possessing it, and being 
treated accordingly. The desire of false glory is 
the desire of gaining by all sorts of means the 
applause of all sorts of people. The desire of true 
glory is the desire of really meriting the approbation 
of the truly wise and good. We say, therefore, that 
what the world calls glory is a cheat, and the pas- 
sion for it is a vice. Understanding him to speak 
of this, the poet has truly sung — 

" And false the light on glory's plume 
As fading clouds of even ; " 

and the Psalmist has truly said : All the glory of 
man is as the flower of grass. It is the selfish and 
evil desire for renown for its own sake, that has laid 
waste the world with wars, and filled it with eternal 
strife. That this unscrupulous impulse has wrought 
mischief, does not, therefore, disprove the excellence 
of the love of true glory as an inspiration of the 
soul. 

But we must now go further. Having shown 
what true glory is, and distinguished the desire of 



The Desire of True Glory, etc. 285 

it from, the desire of false glory, we will next en- 
deavor to make it clear that it is a positive Christian 
duty to cherish in our souls and to enkindle into ar- 
dor, as far as in our power, the love of the true 
glory. 

In proof of this I urge the fact that the desire 
of true glory is a desire eternally cherished in 
the mind of God himself. From all eternity, in 
the infinite and unsearchable perfection of his 
being, he has desired that in which we have seen 
that true glory does consist, viz. : to deserve the su- 
preme blessedness which is one of the legitimate 
rewards of infinite perfection, and to enjoy the ap- 
preciation and the praise and the accorded honor, 
which is another. President Edwards, in one of his 
most elaborate dissertations, has shown in a clear 
and conclusive manner, that it is the doctrine of the 
Bible that the ultimate, or highest end of God in the 
creation was his own glory. Without an intelligent 
creation, a universe of beings capable of appreciat- 
ing the moral beauty of his infinite perfection, God 
could only enjoy one of the rewards of virtue — that 
inward harmony and bliss of self-approval which it 
necessarily produces in itself. To enjoy the other, 
the approbation, love and worship of other beings, 
it was necessary that he should call into existence 



286 Trice Success in Life. 

creatures endowed with capacities fitting them to 
understand and to admire his excellence. This, 
therefore, he did. Having so constituted the mate- 
rial creation as that it should set forth, embody and 
illustrate his attributes, that is to say, the excellen- 
cies of his being, he made the high intelligences of 
Heaven and man on earth competent to discern 
these attributes and to accord to Him the estimation 
and honor which they deserve. This done, it is 
taught throughout the Scriptures that he created all 
things for his own glory, and that he expects it of 
all creatures that they do glorify him, even to the 
extent of making this the chief end of their exist- 
ence. 

I say then that since God, the infinitely perfect 
Being, has always desired and always will desire, 
true glory, to desire it must be a high moral duty 
in beings created in his image. This is clearly one 
of the things in which it becomes us as the sons of 
God to be imitators of our Father. No nobler as- 
piration surely can be awakened in our hearts than 
that which moves us to resemble God, according to 
our measure, in attaining to deserve and to enjoy 
the rewards of genuine virtue, or true goodness. 
As this is the chief good of God's being, so it is of 
our own. 



The Desire of Trite Glory, etc. 287 

A second fact of the same import is that Christ, 
both when a man on earth and since in his exalta- 
tion, has ever desired true glory. Need it be said 
that in the whole of his human character and life, 
and in the w r hole of his peculiar work in the flesh as 
the world's Redeemer, he carefully demeaned him- 
self in such a w r ay as to deserve all that the highest 
virtue could deserve. He did no sin, neither was 
guile found in his mouth. He vyas entirely con- 
scious that he deserved the rewards of exalted vir- 
tue, and he habitually looked forward, in his days of 
toil and suffering, to the time w r hen he should per- 
fectly enjoy them. As the time of his death drew 
near, he said, The hour is come that the Son of 
Man should be. glorified. Now is the Son of Man 
glorified, and God is glorified in him. So also he 
prayed, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with 
thine ow r n self, with the glory that I had with thee 
before the world was. Then after his crucifixion he 
said to the disciples : Ought not Christ to have 
suffered and to enter into glory ? In keeping with 
this Paul says that he was received up into glory ; 
Peter that God raised him up and gave him glory ; 
and John that to him ascriptions of glory are made 
in Heaven by the Church of the redeemed. From 
all which it plainly appears that our divine Re- 



288 True Success in Life, 

deemer desired true glory, attained it, enjoys it, 
and will continue to desire and to enjoy it forever. 

To desire true glory then is Christ-like. It is to 
breathe his spirit, to enter into his views, to live in 
his life. The prospect of glory in full measure was 
the joy set before him, in view of which he endured 
the cross and despised the shame ; and so the de- 
sire and hope of attaining the true glory may be to 
us a powerful incentive to right action — an effective 
stimulus to our zeal and courage in the days of suf- 
fering and toil. We ought, therefore, certainly to 
copy our divine example in this as in other things. 
Like him, we should ever nourish in our souls the 
wish to be entirely worthy of the rewards of perfect 
virtue, and to be permitted to enjoy them fully. 
Just so far as we lack this desire, we are unlike 
Christ, and defective as disciples. 

I add also still further, that the positive duty of 
cherishing the desire of true glory is shown likewise 
by the fact that this, as explained, includes in it the 
highest good which we are made capable of attain- 
ing. For since true glory consists in deserving and 
enjoying the highest rewards of virtue, the desire of 
it is, first, to be in the highest degree virtuous or 
good ; it is, in other words, a desire to be altogether 
such as God desires we should be, and such as obe- 



The Desire of True Glory, ete. 289 

dience to his law, the standard of true virtue would 
make us ; to realize the moral perfection and full 
beauty of our being when made what God design- 
ed. Then, as the second thing, the desire of true 
glory is the desire to be approved and loved and 
honored as good, by all good beings who may have 
knowledge of us. This, of course, includes the being- 
approved and loved and honored, first and chief by 
the blessed God himself ; and what, if not this, is 
the highest conceivable good of my existence so far 
as regards myself — to deserve and to enjoy the favor, 
the smile, the commendation of the High and Holy 
One, and that of all his holy kingdom. What is it 
but this to which God calls me, and to which by the 
redemption of his son and the grace of the Holy 
Spirit, he would bring me ? What is it that makes 
the blessedness of those in heaven, of the highest 
archangel even, but this that they perfectly deserve 
and perfectly enjoy the cordial approval of God and 
the honor that cometh from him and those that 
serve him ? This is the glory which Christ him- 
self enjoys, and which he promises to his own. 
Certainly this is true glory enjoyed in the highest 
degree. Is it not, in this view, most manifestly our 
duty to desire it? to desire it with all earnestness ? 
to desire it with an ever-glowing and all-inspiring 
*9 



2 go True Success in Life. 

ardor ? If true glory is that eminence of moral ex- 
cellence and virtue by the possession of which we 
rightly receive and enjoy the honor that is imperish- 
able, the renown accorded by the immortal God 
himself with the concurrence of a holy universe, will 
any one hesitate to acknowledge that it is an imper- 
ative Christian duty to desire it? God desires true 
glory. Christ desires true glory. It is the highest 
good which we are capable of attaining. Can any 
further proof be wished that it ought to be de- 
sired •? 

It only remains to say that the desire for true 
glory is sure to be ultimately satisfied. For the de- 
, sire of being good, of deserving the approbation of 
God, and of coming to the full enjoyment of it, is the 
most distinguishing and infallible characteristic of a 
Christian, a renewed and believing soul. We have 
had occasion to notice already the fact that in all 
merely natural men, the instinctive desire for glory 
assumes the character of a selfish desire to grasp the 
honor that belongs to virtue without the possession 
of the virtue itself that merits honor. It is only as, 
by the power of the gospel of Christ and by the in- 
ward grace of the divine spirit, the views of men are 
elevated from the false and are fixed upon the true; 
only as the heart is emptied of its selfishness and 



The Desire of Trice Glory, ete. 291 

warmed with a genuine love of goodness ; that it does 
feel, or can feel, a desire for that glory which con- 
sists in being good and obtaining the rewards of 
goodness. It is the design of God by the redemp- 
tion of his Son, it is the purpose of Christ in his 
work as the B.edeemer and Saviour of sinful men, to 
purify and then to satisfy the constitutional desires 
which belong to the human soul, in the case of every 
one who shall receive him. He breaks the bondage of 
selfishness and corruption under which by his trans- 
gression man has brought himself. He restores the 
perception, obscured and almost lost by sin, of the 
beauty of what is morally excellent, and awakens a 
longing for holiness which prompts to effort to attain 
it. By the ministries of his grace and love to those that 
trust him, by the discipline of his providential deal- 
ings with them, and by the inworking of his mighty 
power, he prepares them to be presented complete 
in righteousness before the throne of God ; pure, 
bright, unsullied, perfect beings, possessed of ex- 
alted virtue, and of course receiving its rewards. 
This is the extent, the grandeur of the salvation 
given in Christ to all who shall believe. When the 
work of divine love in the salvation of believers is 
completed, every one of them will be a noble being, 
like unto the angels in the language of the Scrip- 



292 Trite Success in Life. 

tures ; yes, more than that, like unto the Son of God 
himself. When he shall appear, we shall be like 
him, says John ; and this you perceive is precisely 
what he himself expresses in the inspiring words : 
The glory which thou gavest me, I have given, that 
is, pledged or promised them. 

Well may one pause with such a view before him 
and admire the magnificent results of the Christian 
redemption as they are to appear, when fully and 
finally wrought out. The Captain of salvation will 
bring many sons and daughters unto glory. Oh, it 
will be a mighty multitude, such as no man can 
number ! Not one of those, in all ages and condi- 
tions, in whose heart the desire of the glory of true 
goodness has been produced and cherished, will be 
wanting to that great company. That desire, being 
the fruit of his grace, shall in no case be disap- 
pointed. It will indeed be a spectacle to fill the in- 
telligent universe with wonder and delight, when 
the perfect church of the redeemed shall stand at 
last about their great Deliverer, complete in that 
true glory which he has given them to share with 
him. As one star differeth from another star in 
glory, so will it be in that illustrious and blessed 
company. But they will all be sons of light, des- 
tined to adorn the eternal firmament forever. Once 



The Desire of Trice Glory, etc. 293 

sinful, imperfect, unworthy, while on earth they 
were in a process of preparation for this more ex- 
alted state, thev are now through the grace of God 
made perfect ; even the least of them being a glori- 
ous creature, fit for the high employments and the 
pure society of heaven. 

Of what intense personal interest is the ques- 
tion that meets us at this point, Shall we individually 
be there ? This you will perceive is only another 
method of asking, are we now earnestly desiring the 
true glory and striving to obtain it ? Ah, happy for 
us if we are ! Do you feel, some of you, that the 
desire to be holy and to reach the rewards of holi- 
ness is the profound, the ever-living desire of your 
inmost souls ? Do you feel this impulse urging you 
on to daily watchfulness, to prayer, to self-denial and 
self-discipline, to faithful diligence in all well-doing, 
and to a readiness to suffer, if need be, rather than 
swerve from the path of duty ? Do you find it, young 
man, young woman, raising your thoughts and your 
aspirings above the false and perishable glory which 
the children of this world chase to reap only empti- 
ness and disappointment in the end ? If you have 
such a consciousness as this, God speed you towards 
the object you desire! You shall reach it, for Christ 
hath said so. If you suffer with him, you and he 



2Q4 True Success in Life, 

shall at last be glorified together ! Blessed assur- 
ance, noble destiny, awaiting every one in whom the 
desire for it is felt! The so-called glory of this 
world, that which attracts and dazzles the worldly 
minded, is found at length to be but a tawdry, empty 
thing. They that pursue it are like children grasp- 
ing bubbles. But the true glory, that for which the 
soul is made to have instinctive longings, and to 
which the renewed heart deliberately turns, the 
glory which God delights in, which Christ possesses 
and enjoys and wishes that you shall share with him ; 
that, you may be sure, is a most real and satisfying 
good. Go on to desire and seek it ; for when you 
shall have gained it, you will grudge nothing you 
have done to reach it, though you have passed 
through a thousand trying conflicts and even through 
agonies and blood. To deserve and so to receive 
the rewards of exalted goodness — that will be 
enough ! You will be content in such a state, en- 
tirely content forever ! 

But remember, that to fail of the true glory — to 
find when life is gone, and character is fixed, and 
retribution is at hand, that you do not deserve in 
any sense, nor on any ground, the rewards of virtue, 
and can never, never have them, is to encounter the 
opposite of glory, to sink to eternal contempt and 



The Desire of True Glory, etc. 295 

shame ! Oh, seek with earnest desire— you who so 
soon must pass to other worlds — seek in the meth- 
ods of the Gospel, and with your eye on the cross 
of Christ, the honor that cometh from God only — 
the true glory which Christ has bound himself to 
give at last to all his own. It is for this that God 
designed you. It is to raise you to this, that Christ 
has wrought out a full redemption for you. Seek 
ye the glory of being good and of being recognized 
as such by God and all good beings, and when the 
Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father 
and of the holy angels, then shall ye also appear 
with him in glory — deserving honor and receiving it 
in the presence of all God's kingdom ! 

At this point I bring this series of fraternal 
counsels to a close. That alone is a truly success- 
ful life which culminates in the attainment of the 
true and enduring glory, through the struggles, and 
disciplines which belong to real goodness. I pray 
God to add his blessing to these words, and to make 
them useful to those for whose sake they have been 
uttered. May he grant this through Jesus Christ. 
Amen. 



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